Includes bibliographical references (p. 336-348) and index.

List of illustrations -- Chronology -- Glossary -- List of abbreviations -- Map 1 Iraq : principal towns -- Map 2 Basra, Kuwait and the Shatt al-ʻArab -- Map 3 Iraq and the Middle East -- Map 4 Kurdish Iraq -- Introduction -- 1. The Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul -- Power in the three provinces -- The Ottoman 'reconquest' of the three provinces -- Sultan Abdulhamid II and the young Turks -- The Committee of Union and Progress and its opponents -- 2. The British mandate -- British occupation and reactions -- The Iraqi revolt of 1920 -- The institutional definition of the state -- Mandate and treaty -- The Mosul question : territory and oil -- Different communities, different purposes, different histories -- Emerging trends in politics and the economy -- 3. The Hashemite monarchy 1932-41 -- Communal identities and tribal unrest -- Social criticism and political conspiracy -- The coup d'état of 1936 -- Military politics : pan-Arabism and army conspiracies -- Iraq in the Second World War -- The coup d'état of 1941 and the British military occupation -- 4. The Hashemite monarchy 1941-58 -- Re-establishing the regime -- Thwarted liberalisation -- Foreign policies : Arab issues, Palestine and the Portsmouth Treaty -- Economic development and party politics -- Nuri al-Saʻid : the politics of reform and repression -- Nuri al-Saʻid : foreign initiatives and domestic challenges -- The coup d'état of 1958 --

5. The republic 1958-68 -- ʻAbd al-Karim Qasim : dictatorship and disillusion -- Iraqi foreign policy under Qasim -- The politics of conspiracy and the coup d'état of February 1963 -- Baʻthist control and loss of control in 1963 -- ʻAbd al-Salam ʻArif : Nasserist aspirations and Iraqi realities -- Patrimonialism and the rule of the clan -- ʻAbd al-Rahman ʻArif : a weakening hold on power -- 6. The Baʻth and the rule of Saddam Husain 1968-2003 -- Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and the consolidation of power -- Kurdish and Shiʻi challenges and relations with Iran -- Economic patronage, political control and foreign policy alignments -- War in Kurdistan -- Oil revenues, foreign policies and the rise of Saddam Husain -- Saddam Husain's presidency and the war with Iran in 1980 -- Defending the regime and Iraq after 1982 -- A war of attrition 1984-8 -- Resistance amongst the Kurds and the Shiʻa -- The aftermath of war and the invasion of Kuwait 1988-90 -- The war for Kuwait and the uprisings of 1991 -- Iraq under sanctions and the long aftermath of the Gulf war -- Kurdish autonomy and Kurdish politics -- The 'shadow state' in Iraq -- War and the fall of Saddam Husain -- 7. The American occupation and the parliamentary republic -- The rule of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) -- New institutions and old politics -- Insurgency, sectarianism and the spectre of civil war.