Some scholars have doubted or denied the continuity of the Assyrian people from the times of empire to the present time. This work, based on a scientific analysis, sheds light on the subject, and demonstrates the continuous existence of the Assyrian people. Assyria, (northern Iraq), was a state grouped about the heavily fortified city of Ashur, on the middle of the Tigris River. Assyrians had become civilized in the third millennium BC, under the impetus of Mesopotamian development. They created the first empire known to history that was run by an empire administration. The empire created by Sargon Sharukin, much earlier in the third millennium, did not have an administration to hold it together. Toward the close of the Bronze Age (1700-1200 BC), Assyria had expanded westward to the middle of the Euphrates River, and in the south they held Babylon temporarily. Tiglat-Pileser I (1114-1076), extended Assyrian rule to the Mediterranean. But, Adadnirari II (911-891 BC) may be called the father of Assyrian imperial administration. Empire building was a necessity of economic development, which was based on the technological advances caused by the introduction of iron and the alphabet. International trade was necessary for the growth of industry and manufacture, and the Assyrians became the tools to carry out this historic economic necessity. The Assyrian army was the first army to use iron arms. The Assyrian Empire was defeated, in 612 BC, by an alliance of Medes (an Iranian people), Persians (Iran), Babylonians, and Cythians. Since then, Assyria has been governed by Persians, Greeks, Arabs and Turks. The Assyrians were the first non-Jewish people to accept Christianity, and since then, Christianity has become their identity. They burned all their ancient books that reminded them of their pagan kings. Thus, with time, a dark cloud was cast over their memories that separated them from their glorious past. But, now and then, there were sparks from the remote past that testified to the persistence of memory. Only recently has the full national awareness been restored. There are, still, scholars who doubt or deny any link between the ancient and the Modern Assyrians. They argue that the Assyrians were all massacred during the destruction of their empire. This book sets out to demonstrate that the Assyrians were not all massacred during the destruction of their country in 612 BC, and that they emerged as a Christian people in Assyria (northern Iraq) and the neighboring countries.

Examining the relationship between the Iraqi state under the Baʿth regime and the Assyrians, a Christian ethno-religious group, Benjamen looks at the role of minorities and identity in twentieth-century Iraqi political and cultural history, based on new sources and bilingual voices for a nuanced and focused historical exploration.

Many scholars, in the U.S. and elsewhere, have decried the racism and "Orientalism" that characterizes much Western writing on the Middle East. Such writings conflate different peoples and nations, and movements within such peoples and nations, into unitary and malevolent hordes, uncivilized reservoirs of danger, while ignoring or downplaying analogous tendencies towards conformity or barbarism in other regions, including the West. Assyrians in particular suffer from Old Testament and pop culture references to their barbarity and cruelty, which ignore or downplay massacres or torture by the Judeans, Greeks, and Romans who are celebrated by history as ancestors of the West. This work, through its rich depictions of tribal and religious diversity within Mesopotamia, may help serve as a corrective to this tendency of contemporary writing on the Middle East and the Assyrians in particular. Furthermore, Aboona's work also steps away from the age-old oversimplified rubric of an "Arab Muslim" Middle East, and into the cultural mosaic that is more representative of the region. In this book, author Hirmis Aboona presents compelling research from numerous primary sources in English, Arabic, and Syriac on the ancient origins, modern struggles, and distinctive culture of the Assyrian tribes living in northern Mesopotamia, from the plains of Nineveh north and east to southeastern Anatolia and the Lake Urmia region. Among other findings, this book debunks the tendency of modern scholars to question the continuity of the Assyrian identity to the modern day by confirming that the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia told some of the earliest English and American visitors to the region that they descended from the ancient Assyrians and that their churches and identity predated the Arab conquest. It details how the Assyrian tribes of the mountain dioceses of the "Nestorian" Church of the East maintained a surprising degree of independence until the Ottoman governor of Mosul authorized Kurdish militia to attack and subjugate or evict them. Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans is a work that will be of great interest and use to scholars of history, Middle Eastern studies, international relations, and anthropology.

Who are the Assyrians and what role did they play in shaping modern Iraq? Were they simply bystanders, victims of collateral damage who played a passive role in the history of Iraq? And how have they negotiated their position throughout various periods of Iraq's state-building processes?This book details the narrative and history of Iraq in the 20th century and reinserts the Assyrian experience as an integral part of Iraq's broader contemporary historiography. It is the first comprehensive account to contextualize this native people's experience alongside the developmental processes of the modern Iraqi state. Using primary and secondary data, this book offers a nuanced exploration of the dynamics that have affected and determined the trajectory of the Assyrians' experience in 20th century Iraq.

Drawing on 30 years of scholarship, this is a unique, richly illustrated history of the Ancient Assyrian Army and Empire. For the greater part of the period from the end of the 10th century to the 7th century BC, the Ancient Near East was dominated by the dynamic military power of Assyria. This book examines the empire that is now acknowledged as the first 'world' empire, and thus progenitor of all others. Fully illustrated in colour throughout, with photographs of artefacts, drawings and maps, it focuses on the Assyrian Army, the instrument that secured such immense conquests, now regarded by historians as being the most effective of pre-classical times. It was not only responsible for the creation of history's first independent cavalry arm, but also for the development of siege weapons later used by both Greece and Rome. There is a great deal of visual evidence showing how this army evolved over three centuries. During the rediscovery and excavation of the Assyrian civilisation in the mid-19th century, many wall reliefs and artefacts were recovered, and the enormous amount of research carried out by Assyriologists since that time has revealed the immense impact of the Assyrian Empire on history. Such has been the scale of archaeological discovery in more recent years that it is now possible to give the actual names of chariot/cavalry unit commanders. Drawing on this rich scholarship, and utilising the fantastic collections of museums around the world, Mark Healy presents a unique new history of this fascinating army and empire.

Most Americans have little understanding of the relationship between religion and nationalism in the Middle East. They assume that the two are rooted fundamentally in regional history, not in the history of contact with the broader world. However, as Adam H. Becker shows in this book, Americans—through their missionaries—had a strong hand in the development of a national and modern religious identity among one of the Middle East's most intriguing (and little-known) groups: the modern Assyrians. Detailing the history of the Assyrian Christian minority and the powerful influence American missionaries had on them, he unveils the underlying connection between modern global contact and the retrieval of an ancient identity. American evangelicals arrived in Iran in the 1830s. Becker examines how these missionaries, working with the “Nestorian” Church of the East—an Aramaic-speaking Christian community in the borderlands between Qajar Iran and the Ottoman Empire—catalyzed, over the span of sixty years, a new national identity. Instructed at missionary schools in both Protestant piety and Western science, this indigenous group eventually used its newfound scriptural and archaeological knowledge to link itself to the history of the ancient Assyrians, which in time led to demands for national autonomy. Exploring the unintended results of this American attempt to reform the Orient, Becker paints a larger picture of religion, nationalism, and ethnic identity in the modern era.