Cultural cleansing in Iraq : why museums were looted, libraries burned and academics murdered / edited by Raymond W. Baker, Shereen T. Ismael and Tareq Y. Ismael.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I Formulating and executing the policy of cultural cleansing -- Ending the Iraqi state / Raymond W. Baker, Shereen T. Ismael, and Tareq Y. Ismael -- Cultural cleansing in comparative perspective / Glenn E. Perry -- Part II Policy in motion : the assault on Iraq's incomparable history -- Archaeology and the strategies of war / Zainab Bahrani -- The current status of the archaeological heritage of Iraq / Abbas al-Hussainy -- Negligent mnemocide and the shattering of Iraqi collective memory / Nabil al-Takriti -- Part III Policy in motion : the present and the future -- Killing the intellectual class : academics as targets / Dirk Adriaensens -- Wiping the slate clean / Max Fuller and Dirk Adriaensens -- Death, displacement, or flight / Dahr Jamail -- The purging of minds / Philip Marfleet -- Minorities in Iraq : the other victims / Mokhtar Lamani -- Appendix 1 : Reflections on death anxiety and university professors in Iraq / Faris K.O. Nadhmi -- Appendix 2 : List of murdered academics.

Print version record.

Why did the invasion of Iraq result in cultural destruction and killings of intellectuals? Convention sees accidents of war and poor planning in a campaign to liberate Iraqis. The authors argue instead that the invasion aimed to dismantle the Iraqi state to remake it as a client regime. Post-invasion chaos created conditions under which the cultural foundations of the state could be undermined. The authors painstakingly document the consequences of the occupiers' willful inaction and worse, which led to the ravaging of one of the world's oldest recorded cultures. Targeted assassination of over 400 academics, kidnapping and the forced flight of thousands of doctors, lawyers, artists and other intellectuals add up to cultural cleansing. This important work lays to rest claims that the invasion aimed to free an educated population to develop its own culture of democracy.

English.

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