Baghdad sketches : journeys through Iraq

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Bibliographic Information

Baghdad sketches : journeys through Iraq

Freya Stark

Tauris Parke, 2011

  • : [pbk]

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Note

First published in 1937 by John Murray (Publishers) Limited

Description and Table of Contents

Description

The Freya Stark Collection Freya Stark first journeyed to Iraq in 1927. Seven years after the establishment of the British Mandate, the modern state was in its infancy and worlds apart from the country it has since become. During her many years in Iraq, Freya Stark was witness to the rise and fall of the British involvement in the country as well as the early years of independence. Typically - and controversially - she chose to live outside the close-knit western expatriate scene and immersed herself in the way of life of ordinary Iraqis - living in the 'native' quarter of the city and spending time with its tribal sheikhs and leaders. Venturing out of Baghdad, she travelled to Mosul, Nineveh, Tikrit and Najaf, where she perceptively describes the millennia-old tensions between Sunni and Shi'a, time not having dissipated their hatred. In the 1940s she returned again, this time travelling south, to the Marsh Arabs, whose way of life has now all but disappeared; north into Kurdistan and later, Kuwait, in the days before the oil boom. Painting a portrait of both the political and social preoccupations of the day as exquisitely as she does the people and landscapes of Iraq, Baghdad Sketches is a remarkable portrait of the country as it once was.

Table of Contents

List of Illustration Preface The Desert Route An Introduction from Damascus In the Moslem Quarter Marie the Armenian Life in the Slum The Making of a Nationalist Concerning Smells A Chapter of Discord The Life of the River A Visit in the Desert European and American Ladies in Iraq The Social Status of Ladies Concerning Manners A Syriac Christmas Education Ramadhan The Fellahin The Nisibin Road The Young Effendi and the Sentimental Traveller The Devil-Worshippers The Death of Mandali The Kuwait Journey Kuwait. II 1937 Failichah The "Slaves" Club Cosmetics Builton Sand The 'Ashura One of the Four Holy Cities of Iraq Samarra and Tekrit Nejf Index

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