The Kurdish Spring

The material in the book reads like a sprawling poorly researched op-ed.While the author undoubtedly has rich experience working in Kurdistan this book does very little more than to hint at it by engaging in regular name dropping and insinuations about just how much Phillips must have seen back in the day in Iraqi Kurdistan. No significant insights can be gleaned from this book, other than perhaps a conclusion regarding the breath-taking speed with which events are progressing in Kurdistan at the time of writing, - the text was out-of-date on the day it was sent to the press. The rush in sending the manuscript to print, however, is evident all over it: the copy-editing and citations are a sloppy joke (exhibit 1: citing wikiAnswers article "How did Saddam Hussein become president of Iraq?"). The predictable yet chaotically written collection of essays reads like a first draft barely stitched together in the wee hours of the day it was due. Many of the most contentious assertions of fact that Phillips makes are left dangling without a source to substantiate them, while obvious platitudes, such as the oft-noted observation that Kurdistan in summer 2014 shared a 1000 km border with IS are dutifully sourced to the author's interview with the KRG foreign minister.The interviews that the author had with Iraqi Kurdish politicians and businessmen over the course of 2014 seem like the kind of material that could have added substance to the book. Instead, the portions of the interviews mentioned add only fluff, such as an unnecessarily expansive quote from Kurdish politician Cismat Firat who apparently expounded on the cultural parochialism of Arabs as compared to Kurds. (p. 226)Perhaps this publication would have worked better as a pamphlet lobbying the US administration to prop up the Kurds with more conviction, if the author could have brought himself to trim away the needless recounting of Kurdish history in the first half.It is perhaps no coincidence that the foreword by Bernard Kouchner gives nothing away about the contents of the book, - he either had no idea what Phillips was writing or found it difficult to come up with anything other than Phillips' reputation to sell the text.

David Phillips' story about the Kurds is one that needed to be told. This book is an excellent history of a people who have been without a country forever. The term Kurdistan refers to the mountainous area where Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria come together. The Kurds occupy a piece of all these countries. Still they are a people without a country. Phillips has a wealth of experience with these people and the countries they inhabit. He brings this knowledge together in his book in a way that makes it clear who these people are, how badly they've been treated over the years, and what we might expect from them in the future. He emphasizes that the Kurds are the only real friends the U.S. has in the area, and -- yes -- we treat them badly just like other countries did. U.S. policy makers and anyone else who cares about our involvement in the Middle east should read this book. If you don't know much about the Kurds and their place among the four countries mentioned above, this book is a real eye-opener. The only minor negative is the author's -- perhaps unavoidable -- use of abbreviation and acronyms. But don't let that deter your reading the book.

It's pitty that USA is helping the terrorists to divide a NATO member ally country.I beleive the Middle East strategy of US is not logic and at the end they will face failures ;but on the meantime the secular , educated minority of Turkish people will suffer.As Atatürk said our motto is "peace in the country , peace in the World"

I will recommend this book to anyone interested in Kurdish affairs.

well done!! brief but to the point

very interesting

In fact I don't know if it's okay or magnificent, but I have to choose a number of stars, while I only want to express my disappointment about not (yet?) being able to purchase an e-book-version.

This is an outstanding book for the general reader about the struggle for survival of the Kurdish people, who inhabit portions of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. None of these countries have allowed the Kurdish people to be full fledged citizens, and any attempts to achieve Kurdish autonomy have been crushed militarily in all four countries since 1919. The book is also a good history of events in Iraq and Syria since 2003.The emergence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq has been checked by Kurdish peshmerga fighters to date, but they lack the heavy weapons to defeat ISIS control of Mosul, Iraq's seond largest city.There are extensive footnotes at the end of each chapter to help the reader to further sources. This book would have benefitted from maps of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran showing where major Kurdish populations are living. Otherwise, readers may need to google names of cities and regions mentioned in the four countriesI recommend this book highly for all readers.

Gutes Buch, erläutert die Geschichte und gegenwärtige situation bestens. Warum die kurden noch nicht unabhängig sind, ist schwierig zu beurteilen.