Focusing on the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Hamdi Hassan offers a balanced examination of the motivation of the Iraqi polity and the conditions which accelerated and facilitated the decision to invade. Critical of the traditional approach of most Middle East studies, The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait offers a counterpoint to Western interpretations of this key event in the contemporary history of the Middle East.

Hassan examines how Saddam Hussein assessed and responded to American and Israeli intentions after the invasion, the reaction of other Arab states, and the unprecedented grassroots support for the Iraqi leadership. In this context, the author examines the social structure of Iraqi society – families, clans and regional alliances – and the importance of Ba’athism. Hassan also examines the political structure of the country, relating the identity of Arabism – the religion and language which is associated closely with the Pan Arabist ideals – to Iraqi foreign policy.

A wide-ranging examination of the causes of war in Syria and the Middle East.

In War in Syria and the Middle East, Federico Manfredi Firmian uses historical, political, and economic lenses to examine how Syria’s civil war is part of a broad pattern of social breakdown increasingly prevalent across the Arab and Islamic worlds. This expansive book argues that many conflicts across the Middle East today are rooted in fundamental ideological divides that originated with European imperialism. In Syria, the iniquities of French rule gave way to the radicalism of the Arab Socialist Baʿth Party, which promised to dismantle imperial legacies and capitalist logics through nationalizations, land redistribution, and central planning.

Baʿthist Syria, however, ultimately failed to provide a viable alternative to capitalism. In fact, its failures, and the failures of other revolutionary regimes of socialist inspiration, provided an opening for armed Islamist movements to challenge both secular authoritarian rule and US foreign policies—ultimately leading to civil war. Combining a multidisciplinary approach with fieldwork, War in Syria and the Middle East argues for a global perspective on a pressing, ongoing conflict.