Charles Tripp traces Iraq's troubled history from its nineteenth-century roots in the Ottoman empire to the rise of the Bath party and the ascendancy of Saddam Hussein. This is a story of social conflict, power struggles between rival clans, hostility and wars with neighboring states, and the disastrous consequences of those wars. The book's incisive analysis of how the modern state creates its own distinctive political field will ensure the interest of all those concerned with Iraq's complex past and uncertain future.