A Thousand Sighs A Thousand Revolts Journeys in Kurdistan (Audible Audio Edition) Christiane Bird Suzanne Toren Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : A Thousand Sighs A Thousand Revolts Journeys in Kurdistan (Audible Audio Edition) Christiane Bird Suzanne Toren Audible Studios Books
Inhabiting a mountainous area that stretches through Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and the former USSR, the Kurds, with a population numbering 25-30 million, are the largest ethnic group in the world without a state of their own. Though the term "Kurdistan" has been used as a geographical expression since the 13th century, the breakup of the Ottoman Empire resulted in the division of the land of the Kurds among surrounding nation-states. Having retained a separate cultural identify for over 3,000 years, most Kurds have never really accepted the borders imposed on them. They remain insolent, much-persecuted outsiders to the countries in which they live. Though the Kurds played a major military and tactical role in our recent war with Iraq, most of us know very little about this fiercely independent, long-marginalized people.
In A Thousand Sighs, A Thousand Revolts, intrepid journalist Christiane Bird travels through this volatile part of the world to tell the story of the Kurds, using moving first-hand observations and in-depth research to illuminate their little-known history and culture. What gives the Kurds such a strong sense of national identity, despite their many differences? Living in a world where war is more normal than peace, how do they rebuild time and again after suffering cultural and physical genocide? Why is their future so crucial to the interests of the US and the political stability of the entire region? In a colorful, fast-moving narrative, Bird explores these questions as she portrays a highly romantic people, once famed for their horsemanship and nomadic lifestyle and now known for their irrepressible spirit, humor, generosity, clannishness, and violence.
Eternal outsiders, constantly rebelling against authority, the Kurds fascinate with their capacity for great courage and great betrayal. Including up-to-the minute, first-hand pre- and post-war reportage, this important book offers timely insight into an unknown but increasingly influential part of the world.
A Thousand Sighs A Thousand Revolts Journeys in Kurdistan (Audible Audio Edition) Christiane Bird Suzanne Toren Audible Studios Books
Interesting ethnic group of people with a difficult history. Less detail would have ben OK, too.Product details
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A Thousand Sighs A Thousand Revolts Journeys in Kurdistan (Audible Audio Edition) Christiane Bird Suzanne Toren Audible Studios Books Reviews
I read this book when it first came out and it is very well researched, yet there are so many different characters in the book that the reader loses his or her way and it is very confusing. I would have enjoyed the book more if the author had stuck with two or three characters to tell the story. The average book lover will not finish this book but will set it aside after a few chapters. What a pity. Still, it is a worthwhile project.
It was hard for me to read the book objectively, as I have spent considerable time in South Kurdistan (Iraq) doing humanitarian aid work. In Bird's journey through Iraqi Kurdistan, every town she visited and every person she met reminded me of just how much I miss and love the Kurdish country and people. Bird's analysis is not deep nor is it political for the most part. What politics are mentioned, it seems are designed to pull out and investigate the Kurdish culture and psyche. Having lived among the Kurds, her interactions with them ring true and accurate.
All this being said, and what is keeping this book from getting a five star review, is that I found the author's semi frequent (once or twice a chapter) pot shots at American politics leading up to the invasion of 2003 to be somewhat tiresome. If you are reading this book, it is because you want to find out what the Kurds think and do, not what the author thinks about American foreign policy.
Reviewed by
Robert A. Lincoln
"Once again, just business as usual in the wild and woolly world of Kurdish politics."
So writes Christiane Bird two-thirds of the way through A Thousand Sighs, A Thousand Revolts as she describes an event in the relationship among Iranians, Iraqis, and Kurds in the early 1970s. In a sense she was denying what she announced at the start "This is a not a book about Kurdish politics. This is a book about the Kurdish people."
Like any good travel book, however, A Thousand Sighs is also a political study, which is especially important today when the Kurds are suddenly in the forefront of the news. Ms. Bird is a reactor, not an analyst. As she states early on, the Kurds are the world's largest ethnic group without a state of their own, despite their longstanding claim of a country called Kurdistan. Several times, they have almost but not quite made it and at least once held the senior position in someone else's empire (the Seljuk, for Saladin was a Kurd), but have never been truly absorbed into or taken control of another political culture.
Today, the Kurds are a sizeable percentage of the populations of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. On unofficial maps, Kurdistan extends from the middle of the Anatolian plain to the mountains of Iran. The Kurds probably number between 25 and 30 million.
Ms. Bird found them today extremely sympathetic, perhaps dangerously so in the long run, toward the United States. They hope at least to hold a federated piece of real estate, rich in oil, in Iraq. Centuries ago the Kurds converted to Islam, and she does not mention much about the conventional saying in the Middle East that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Kurds Ms. Bird contacted rate Turks as their most fearsome enemy. Her personal interactions were mainly in English. It was Ataturk after World War I, when the French, British, and Greeks threatened to take over Turkey from Izmir in the west across Lake Van in the east, who held off the threatening troops and somehow kept Turkey together; the Kurds considered Diyarbakir in the east the traditional capital of Kurdistan and continue to resist integration. Here, again, politics strongly enters in. Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO, hopes for European Union membership and EU powers rate her treatment of the Kurds as an important issue.
At one point toward the end of A Thousand Sighs, Ms. Bird likens mainstream Turkish attitudes toward Kurds to white mainstream attitudes toward black Americans, but it is impossible to agree. Kurds have an entirely different cultural and political tradition. The Kurdish question, colorful as the Kurds may be, demands a healthy dose of but more than the cultural-personal study A Thousand Sighs is able to provide.
Robert Lincoln, a retired Foreign Service officer who lives in northern Virginia, spent a dozen years in or directly connected with programs in the Middle East.
You just have to wonder how these tribal people will ever resolve their problems it has been going in for so long u can only hope that they will finally see their way clear to move I.
Interesting ethnic group of people with a difficult history. Less detail would have ben OK, too.
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