Reading Iraq: Culture and Power in Conflict (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)

As a dramatic new era of Iraqi politics unfolds, Muhsin al-Musawi shows how artificially imposed notions of constitutional monarchy and secular nationalism failed to take root in the Iraqi sensibility, and instead provoked a broad-based counterculture of resistance. In a penetrating historical analysis, Musawi demonstrates the attractions of sectarianism and religion during periods of occupation and oppression.