Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why Museums Were Looted, Libraries Burned and Academics Murdered

by Raymond William Baker (Editor), Tareq Y. Ismael (Editor), Shereen T. Ismael (Editor)

Why did the invasion of Iraq result in cultural destruction and killings of intellectuals? Convention sees accidents of war and poor planning in a campaign to liberate Iraqis. The authors argue instead that the invasion aimed to dismantle the Iraqi state to remake it as a client regime.

Post-invasion chaos created conditions under which the cultural foundations of the state could be undermined. The authors painstakingly document the consequences of the occupiers' willful inaction and worse, which led to the ravaging of one of the world's oldest recorded cultures. Targeted assassination of over 400 academics, kidnapping and the forced flight of thousands of doctors, lawyers, artists and other intellectuals add up to cultural cleansing.

This important work lays to rest claims that the invasion aimed to free an educated population to develop its own culture of democracy.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Mustafa Basree]

Editors and authors of this book believe that the planners of the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq were not simply grossly negligent in allowing Iraq to descend into this hell. Their argument is that the planners consciously facilitated the dismantling of Iraq's intellectual, academic and cultural apparatus in order to wipe the slate clean as a prelude to the rebirth of the country as a neo-capitalist secular democracy that would serve as a model for change across the Middle East. "To be remade, a state must be rendered malleable", as the editors of this volume observe. A great book to study the current events and condition beset Iraq and its people. It's immensely full with facts and statistics to back up the argument!

[Wael Al-alwani]

The book is very good.. The book is a collection of articles related to the issue, however, this made it lack the extended details I was looking for, and made the transitions between the topics not smooth enough.
What happened to Iraq and its culture (heritage and the assassination of its academics and brilliant minds) is very sad. Syria might face the same issues if this wasn't taken care of and acted upon proactively.