The essays in this collection offer robust theoretical analysis of language and cultural rights, class and gender, policy and politics, history and historiography, nation and nationalism, and Marxism. They continue to remain original to a vast array of debates and contestations in these areas. The book includes unpublished pieces and some key contributions that are most relevant to the contemporary debates on theory and method of nation/nationalism, and the struggle of national minorities for sovereignty, cultural and political rights. Each chapter provides original data and are written over a span of decades, but significantly, they offer a radical break with the colonial, orientalist, and nationalist traditions of knowledge production. This book is an exemplary exploration of nation and nationalism in a Marxist dialectical, historical materialism.

In early 1946, Kurds declared an independent republic in north-west Iran. The Mahabad Republic, as it became known, was the first time that the Kurds experienced self-rule in the modern era. Although short-lived, the Republic had a formative influence on the subsequent development of Kurdish nationalist movements in Iran and the wider region. Here, Abbas Vali disputes the conventional view that the Kurdish Republic was the result of a Soviet conspiracy to dismember Iran, a side-effect of the Cold War. Instead he emphasizes the diversity of the internal Iranian and Kurdish factors that led to the formation of the Republic, arguing that the Republic represents the culmination of a new and modern Kurdish national identity. This was an identity which emerged in response to the exclusionary effects of the political and discursive processes and practices of the construction of a modern Iranian nation-state and national identity since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which often excluded and attempted to override a Kurdish one. Vali contends that this process, largely due to the socio-economic and cultural impact of the rule of Pahlavis, in reality forced the Kurdish people of Iran to form and reinforce their own ethno-linguistic and ethno-national community. The expressions of this separate identity can be traced through the formation and dissolution of Kurdish national parties, such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI). 'Kurds and the State in Iran' offers an analysis of the formation and effects of the concepts of the state, the nation, nationalism and ethnic identity, which go beyond current ethnicist and constructivist theories, thus making it essential reading for anyone interested in the Kurds or the development of national and state identities in the Middle East.

This volume contains 13 essays, written by a group of distinguished scholars, on the most important issues facing the Kurds today. Subjects covered include politics, economics, ISIS, and number of issues that will be of interest to scholars, practitioners, and the intelligent lay public. Moreover, in delving into the nuances of such themes as ethno-nationalist origins, self-determination, US-KRG relations, democratic autonomy, ISIS, Kobane, the Kurdish Diaspora, Ataturk and Bourguiba, among others, these essays will definitely stand the test of time.

The Cambridge History of the Kurds is an authoritative and comprehensive volume exploring the social, political and economic features, forces and evolution amongst the Kurds, and in the region known as Kurdistan, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. Written in a clear and accessible style by leading scholars in the field, the chapters survey key issues and themes vital to any understanding of the Kurds and Kurdistan including Kurdish language; Kurdish art, culture and literature; Kurdistan in the age of empires; political, social and religious movements in Kurdistan; and domestic political developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Other chapters on gender, diaspora, political economy, tribes, cinema and folklore offer fresh perspectives on the Kurds and Kurdistan as well as neatly meeting an exigent need in Middle Eastern studies. Situating contemporary developments taking place in Kurdish-majority regions within broader histories of the region, it forms a definitive survey of the history of the Kurds and Kurdistan.

A seminal work in the field of Kurdish studies, Wadie Jwaideh’s pioneering research, published for the first time, presents a detailed analysis of the early phases of Kurdish nationalism and offers a framework within which to understand the movement’s later development. Following Wadie Jwaideh’s dissertation defense, his doctoral chairman took aside Jwaideh’s wife, Alice, and asked her to submit the work for publication without Wadie’s permission, believing that Wadie’s penchant for perfection would postpone its publication indefinitely. The thesis was never published during Jwaideh’s lifetime, but its fame spread by word of mouth, and many scholars have recognized its importance not only as a study of the earlier periods of Kurdish nationalism but also as a model for understanding its subsequent history. The work now stands as a classic, referenced by some of the most renowned scholars in the field. Its publication will permit it to reach a greater audience and to contribute more fully to the understanding and appreciation of this geopolitical and cultural movement. Jwaideh was born in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, into an Arabic-speaking Christian family that later moved to Baghdad. His intimate knowledge of the land and its people gave Jwaideh shrewd insight into Kurdish society and politics. Exploring the rich historical roots of the Kurdish national movement, he challenges the established view of the early Kurdish uprisings as isolated incidents triggered by economic hardship or political dissatisfaction. Instead he offers a new interpretation of the Kurds’ nationalist position, convincingly demonstrating the age and depth of their grievances. This complex and layered history of the Kurdish nationalist movement offers a valuable perspective from which to view the current conditions in Iraq. Jwaideh’s sensitive and prescient treatment of this region gives his study great contemporary relevance.