Kurdistan: Crafting of National Selves

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Description

This book provides a concise analysis of the making of Kurdistan, its peoples, historical developments and cultural politics. Under the Ottoman Empire Kurdistan was the name given to the autonomous province in which the Kurdish princes ruled over a cosmopolitan population. But re-mapping, wars and the growth of modern nation-states have turned Kurdistan into an imagined homeland. The Kurdish question is one that continually reappears on the international stage because of the strategic location of Kurdistan. In describing the ways in which Kurdistan and its history have been represented and politicized, the author traces the vital role of the nationalist States of Turkey, Iran and Iraq in the crafting of political actors in the region.

Reviews

The book opens new horizons toward the understanding of the Kurdish question as a major problem in the Middle East. -- Hashem Ahmadzadeh, Centre for Kurdish Studies, University of Exeter, UK
This book is not so much about how Kurds imagine their nation and construct their identities as members of it, but more about how the nation-states where Kurds live mould the national identities to which Kurds are expected to conform. And a very chilly, top-down power dynamic it looks too, despite the author's commendable insistence on the plurality of Kurdish communities, the dimension of gender (rarely seen in writings on Kurds) and issues of individual and negotiation. * Times Higher Education *
[T]he study is valuable for an understanding of how the history of the Kurds was shaped, especially in Turkey, and it promotes a discussion of the history of the Kurds by exposing many problematic issues in various studies dealing with them. -- Eli Amarilyo, Interdisciplinary Center in Herzeliya, Israel * Journal of Intercultural Studies *

Author Bio

Christopher Houston is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.