Book excerpt: “Eric Davis eschews traditional histories of Iraq that have tended to emphasize political personalities and struggles amongst them, and focuses instead on the relationships between culture and political control, civil society and state institutions, and intellectuals and policy makers. The result is an innovative and multi-layered analysis that is a pleasure to read.”—Adeed Dawish, author or Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair "Eric Davis's book is a truly impressive tour de force of the cultural history of modern Iraq and the political struggles over the appropriation of national culture and memory. It is based not only on meticulous and detailed research, but also a thorough familiarity and sympathy with Iraqi society. Davis offers a particularly valuable cultural and intellectual history of modern Iraq, a country that has appeared in Western public discourse primarily in terms of its geo-political aspects and the bloody regime which ruled it until recent times."—Sami Zubaida, author of Law and Power in the Islamic World