The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development: Contemporary Issues in the Middle East

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 phases of Kurdish nationalism but also as a framework for understanding later developments. Now forty years later, the work continues to stand 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 Basra, in southern Iraq into an Arabic-speaking, Christian family who later moved to Baghdad. Because of his intimate knowledge of the land and its people, Jwaideh developed a shrewd insight into Kurdish society and politics. He convincingly demonstrates the rich historical roots of the Kurdish national movement, offering a new interpretation to the Kurdish political circumstance, which is often viewed as a series of isolated events triggered by economic upheaval or political dissatisfaction. 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."