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| Introduction | |
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| General Information | |
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| Overview | |
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| Historical sketch | |
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| Geography | |
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| Climate | |
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| Flora and fauna | |
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| Population | |
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| Government | |
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| Iraq Governorates | |
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| Major towns | |
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| Economy | |
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| Ethnic groups and languages | |
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| Religion: the Sunni-Shia divide | |
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| Iraq Then | |
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| The Ancient Kingdoms | |
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| Chronology | |
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| Early Mesopotamia | |
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| Before Sumer | |
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| The Sumerians | |
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| Babylon and Hammurabi | |
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| The Assyrians | |
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| Babylon revisited | |
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| Umayyads, Abbasids and Ottomans | |
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| Chronology | |
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| The Umayyads | |
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| The Abbasids - the rise of Islam | |
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| The Mongols | |
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| The Ottomans | |
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| European intervention | |
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| The Emergence of Modern Iraq | |
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| Chronology | |
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| 20th-century society | |
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| The British mandate | |
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| Independence: the first 26 years | |
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| The 1958 revolution and its aftermath | |
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| Iraq Now | |
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| Saddam's Iraq | |
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| The Kurds | |
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| Saddam's rise to power | |
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| Saddam Hussein: a brutal legacy lives on | |
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| The Iran-Iraq War | |
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| The invasion of Kuwait | |
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| Life Under Sanctions | |
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| Chronology | |
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| Introduction | |
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| The intellectual crisis | |
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| Illness and disease | |
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| The ruling elite | |
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| The failure of sanctions | |
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| The 2003 War | |
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| Chronology | |
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| Why war? | |
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| 'Let's pretend' negotiations | |
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| The first air strikes | |
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| 23-28 March - unexpected resistance | |
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| The road to Baghdad | |
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| The battle for Baghdad | |
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| Post-Saddam Iraq | |
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| Chronology | |
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| Poverty, uncertainty and war without end | |
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| Reconstruction | |
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| Looting, chaos and wishful thinking | |
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| The Coalition Provisional Authority | |
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| The Iraqi Interim Government - 'made-in-America' | |
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| Resistance to the occupation and insurgency | |
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| The Iraqi Interim Government (IIG) | |
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| The January 2005 elections | |
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| The constitution and the referendum | |
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| Final elections on 15 December 2005 | |
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| The North (Iraqi Kurdistan) | |
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| Kurdish culture and society | |
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| Historical background | |
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| The 20th century | |
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| Iraqi Kurdistan - the other Iraq | |
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| Towns, cities and sites | |
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| Iraqi Kurdistan: regions under the control of the KRG | |
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| Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle | |
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| Historical background | |
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| The 2003 war | |
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| Baghdad today - a divided city drenched in blood | |
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| The Sunni west, the Shia east and north | |
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| The Green Zone - a fortress in the centre of Baghdad | |
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| Sadr City - a Shia world in the heart of Baghdad | |
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| The surge - a formula for curbing violence | |
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| Life goes on | |
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| Beyond Baghdad - the Sunni Triangle | |
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| The South | |
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| Historical background: the Shias and the holy cities | |
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| The 20th century | |
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| The Islamisation of southern Iraq | |
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| The holy cities | |
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| The marshlands | |
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| The cities of the south | |
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| Culture | |
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| Iraqi art: strokes of genius | |
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| Iraqi poets: the soul and conscience of the Arab World | |
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| Music: informal and improvised | |
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| Films: a few homegrown 'magic tricks' | |
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| Food | |
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| Archaeological Sites | |
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| Early archaeology | |
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| The 20th century | |
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| Eradicating the past: looting in post-Saddam Iraq | |
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| Saving the cradle of civilisation | |
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| A-Z of archaeological sites | |
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| Iraqis in Exile | |
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| Introduction | |
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| Iraqis in Syria | |
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| Iraqis in Jordan | |
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| Iraqis in Britain | |
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| Iraqis in America | |
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| Postscript | |
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| Travelling in Iraq: Practical information | |
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| Giving something back | |
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| Further Information | |
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| Bibliography | |
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| Index | |