As a modern state, Iraq has experienced an unhappy history. Most recently it became the focus of attention after it occupied Kuwait in 1990. In antiquity the area was home to the Mesopotamian civilizations of the Sumerians and Babylonians. In later centuries, Iraq became the battleground over which the Persian state and Turkish empire struggled for supremacy. Great Britain occupied Mesopotamia during the First World War, and the modern state of Iraq was created in the 1920s. This revised bibliography includes works on Iraq's modern history and ancient Mesopotamian history and archaeology.