The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq's Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of Its Communists, Ba'thists and Free Officers Paperback – 17 May 2004

It is not possible to praise this book too highly and it is essential reading for many reasons.It is the seminal work of Iraqi social and political history of the Twentieth Century. Anyone who wishes to understand Iraqi society and politics today will need the background that this book provides.It is the history of how a society has reacted to the impact of it's contact with the industrial capitalist world, what it was like prior to this impact and what has happened to it as a result. How older social classes have dissolved under this influence and how new social classes have arisen in their place and the impact this has had on political movements in Iraq, principally the Ba'th and the Communist Party. If you want to understand what Ba'thism is and get beneath the propaganda and clichés, this book is essential. If you also want to understand what happened to the most powerful Communist Party in the Arab world and how this has shaped subsequent Iraqi and Middle Eastern history and politics. It also has clear analysis of the events which have shaped Iraqi history, the revolt of 1920, the coups of 1936 and 1941, the Wathbah of 1946, the revolution of 1958, the first Ba'thi coup of 1963 and those of 1968. Many of the understandings of these events that we in the West hold are shown to be inaccurate or highly simplistic.Most importantly of all, however, is the approach of the author. Hanna Batatu has got into Iraqi society and what makes it tick in a way which isn't possible if, as some do, one views countries such as Iraq as being held down under the dead weight of religion. The bankruptcy of the old 'orientalist' approach is fully exposed as Batatu produces vaste amounts of data on politics, economics, religion, social class and geographical origins in order to illustrate the complex nature of the society and it's evolution in a way which traditional approaches to the history of 'Islamic' countries can't hope to match. Batatu demonstrates how Iraq's political movements and history are shaped by the struggles and aspirations of it's social classes rather than religious or ethnic sectarianism.Five stars isn't enough.

This is the best history of modern Iraq available in English, dealing mainly with the period between the revolt against British rule in 1920 and the final ascendancy of the Ba'ath Party in 1968. A work of admirable and inspiring scholarship, it creates a complex and nuanced portrait of the country in a period of upheaval and change. It is the first book that any serious student of Iraqi history should read and it contains many insights and gems for those who do not have the patience or incentive to read it from cover to cover. It is, however, a splendid academic magnum opus rather than an easily assimilated rough guide!

7 years after I bought it I still haven't managed to read it. It is very dense with immense detail but little overarching argument. I was disappointed with what is regarded as a classic. Above all I found it turgid but made 3 attempts to read sections all of which were hard work

This is a must read for any person ( Politician or historian) or any one interested to understand Iraq and the Iraqi society and the complex social changes of that country. This is one of the seminal books in the area that has been published within the last 30 yearsThe book clearly illustrate the magnificent efforts of the period of the Iraq under Hashemite Kingdom ( 1921-1958) to make Iraq a modern state with radical changes of Iraq and Iraqi society for a better place for its people and how all these efforts and changes went down hill after the 1958 military coup and the periods that followed.This is a must read if you want to understand why Iraq became so central to the world events in the last 20 years.

Without a doubt, the essential work on 20th century Iraqi political history. Provides an in-depth, well documented look at the various classes of Iraq, their makeup of society and how their interests determined the base for certain parties such as the Communist party, the Ba'ath etc. This should serve as essential reading for those who callously think that Iraq is nothing more than an artificial creation of the British unifying three enemy groups by force. It's a pity there isn't a more wallet-friendly version of this book in print.

I first came across the title of this book in another `review' (of sorts) so compelling that I sought the book for my own. In Cullen Murphy's "Are We Rome?" [ ISBN 0-618-74222-0] there is a passage comparing the attitudes of ancient Roman generals and current American military leadership in wartime. (I now summarize and paraphrase:) The Romans were renowned, evidently, for being arrogant, smug, complacent, ignorant, contemptuous of their enemies (always called `barbarians'), and utterly assured of victory no matter who their opponents were. Indeed, they were often successful, but sometimes they were crushingly defeated because they paid so little attention to the capabilities or characteristics of those arrayed against them. Murphy then fast-forwards to the newly-established Green Zone in Baghdad in the early days of America's conquest of Iraq (near the time of the "Mission Accomplished" speech.) An Arab translator sits in a cubicle studying a textbook. An American general comes in and asks what he's reading. "The bible" answers the Arab. "You don't read the Bible, you're a Muslim," the officer challenges. The man holds up his book: "The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq" by Hanna Batatu, which he considers absolutely essential to understand Iraq, its people, its conflicts, its likely responses to events going forward. The general reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a tatty paperback of a tourist's guide to Iraq and proclaims "Everything I need to know is in this." The stunning connection between this American soldier and Quintilius Varus, the officer whose name is attached to one of the worst military fiascos in Roman history (Clades Variana - The Disaster of Varus) put pins and needles in my hands and neck. Because of that debacle, the nature of Europe was given part of its qualities. Our leaders may choose to nurture their ignorance, but I want to read the book the translator had. The copy I obtained is a paperback 2004 reprint of the original published in the 1970s. It is enormous, dense, packed with facts, statistics, graphs, charts, lists, footnotes, some maps, and needing study with a highlighter rather than a simple read. The more I absorb of Batatu's opus the less fuzzy the lens through which I look at what our president calls our national "frustration." Today is September 11, 2007. General Petraeus speaks to Congress with reassurance that though things are bad in Baghdad they are improving in the edges of the provinces. Last night Batatu's details revealed the enduring strength of the smaller communities held at arms' length from the capital city (nicknamed "the devourer of men".) Batatu's words can take scrutiny, which is more than I can say for the policy papers our government is presently using for reference.I give the book four stars - the same as Petraeus wears on his uniform.

Hannah Batatu taught me at Georgetown 20 years ago. He was an interesting, personally often charming man with a rather dry empirical Marxist view of things. The title of his book reflects this element of materialist focus.I have not looked into this book for some time. It is exhaustive and from memory there is a "lack of woods for the trees" element to it. At times one is given too much detail about exactly what class of peasant someone's father was.Nonetheless, the key point I took away from it is that Iraq is a "country" full of complexity and tension. That is a simple lesson which someone who, for example, might want to invade the country would have done well to heed.If nothing else, this books teaches us the value of history in unearthing complexity. If we try and paper over that complexity, or ignore it, reducing it to elements of "good" and "bad" things often turn very ugly indeed.