Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History

by Susan Meiselas, Martin van Bruinessen (Introduction)

Kurdistan was erased from world maps after World War I, when the victorious powers carved up the Middle East, leaving the Kurds without a homeland. Today the Kurds, who live on land that straddles the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, are by far the largest ethnic group in the world without a state.
Renowned photographer Susan Meiselas entered northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War to record the effects of Saddam Hussein’s campaigns against Iraq’s Kurdish population.  She joined Human Rights Watch in documenting the destruction of Kurdish villages (some of which Hussein had attacked with chemical weapons in 1988) and the uncovering of mass graves. Moved by her experiences there, Meiselas began work on a visual history of the Kurds. The result, In the Shadow of History, gives form to the collective memory of the Kurds and creates from scattered fragments a vital national archive.

In addition to Meiselas’s own photographs, Kurdistan presents images and accounts by colonial administrators, anthropologists, missionaries, soldiers, journalists, and others who have traveled to Kurdistan over the last century, and, not to forget, by Kurds themselves. The book’s pictures, personal memoirs, government reports, letters, advertisements, and mapsprovide multiple layers of representation, juxtaposing different orders of historiographical evidence and memories, thus allowing the reader to discover voices of the Kurds that contest Western notions of them. In its layering of narratives—both textual and photographic—Kurdistan breaks new ground, expanding our understanding of how images can be used as a medium for historical and cultural representation.

A crucial repository of memory for the Kurdish community both in exile and at home, this new edition appears at a time when the world’s attention has once again been drawn to the lands of this little-understood but historically consequential people.

Genres: History, Middle East, Photography, Nonfiction, Politics, World History

472 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 1997

About the author

Susan Meiselas is a documentary photographer based in New York. She is the author of Carnival Strippers (1976), Nicaragua (1981), Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History (1997), Pandora’s Box (2001), Encounters with the Dani (2003) Prince Street Girls (2016), A Room Of Their Own (2017), Tar Beach (2020), and Carnival Strippers Revisited (2022).

Meiselas is well known for her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America. Her photographs are included in North American and international collections. In 1992 she was made a MacArthur Fellow and received a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015). Most recently, she received the first Women in Motion Award from Kering and the Rencontres d’Arles (2019), the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (2019), and the Erich Salomon Award of the German Society for Photography (2022). Mediations, a survey exhibition of her work from the 1970s to present was initiated by the Jeu de Paume in Paris and traveled to Fundació Antoni Tàpies, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Instituto Moreira Salles in São Paulo, among others.

Meiselas has been the President of the Magnum Foundation since 2007, with a mission to expand diversity and creativity in documentary photography.

Reviews

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrated giant book.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This "coffee table"-type book is actually more like a glossy, over-sized textbook on Kurdish history and identity from the 1870s until the 2000s. It is filled with historical photographs, excerpts from writers and travelers, clips from newspaper articles, State Department cables, letters, and much more. A gorgeous book that is also substantial in content. It's size and scope are geared for those with a very keen interest in the Kurds; but it's still worth checking out from the library for everyone else.

[S B · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all I want to thank miss Meiselas for putting such a book together. My review will be a bit harsh but it’s my honest view about it.

First of all there’re names of people that are written in different ways (an example is Simko/Simitko). I understand that it’s from different articles/ telegrams but an annotation about it or a simple explanation next to it would do a lot.

Secondly the story is not really chronological. Sometimes we’re at the end of the 20th century some pages later it’s the beginning of the century. The order is not there. It seems like the ‘writer’ of this book just took random pictures, articles and telegrams and just put it all in a book and release it.

Thirdly I will get a bit into detail that’s why the Spoiler is on. The part about Qazi Muhammed is poorly written. There is nothing about that the modern Kurdistan flag is a flag that was made for the Mahabad empire. Also nothing about the story behind it. Beginning of this part there is an interview between Qazi Muhammed and a reporter where Qazi is saying that they bought the printing press and they can prove this. A couple pages later there is a text from someone that switched sides and said that he saw that they got it from the Soviets. Like I also said in my first point. I think there should be an annotation about this. The accusation is just too big and that the ‘writer’ left it unexplained leaves me to believe there are malicious intent behind it to be honest.

Fourthly some of the pictures of the telegrams were not readable because of half the letters that were blurry or just because the handwriting was hard to read. Why wouldn’t the ‘writer’ just type it next to it so everyone can read it fully and good, this just makes my second point more solid.

As last I want to say that you literally cannot buy this book for a normal price. It costs at the moment I’m typing this review 370,95 euros (a signed one because you cannot find it unsigned). I think this just show the intent behind it. It’s crazy that the Kurds need to get squeezed to learn their own history. This again puts question marks in my head about the intention of miss Meiselas.

I do want to thank miss Meiselas because there’re a lot of pictures/stories in the book that you cannot find that easily. But I just think the effort is too low to call it a great book. That’s why I will give it 2 stars.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very special book consisting of photos, newspaper and magazin pages, declassified governmental memos put together so tat you get a chronological history books of the Kurish people in "modern times" - from the Ottomans and past Saddam Hussein and Khomeini. but not as far as Erdogan and al'Assad. A readable book, still possible to buy as new.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must read!

[Bayad Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tale of Kurds through pictures...

[Hoshmand_Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Job

[Alesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A breathtakingly beautiful book of photos from Kurdistan, plus a sensitive and thoughtful narrative. I absolutely treasure this book.

[سيامند گوهری]

hi
im kurdish people
like red your book free pleas

[Sarbast Abdorahman]

I need to see the pache book