Jafar al-Askari: Modernization, Martial Discipline and Post-Ottoman Iraq

with Matthew MacLean

hosted by Zach Foster and Chris Gratien

While biographies that view great men as the driving force in history can be problematic, the lives of marginal or ordinary individuals, when understood within their historical context, can be quite illustrative. In this podcast, Matt MacLean explores post-Ottoman transition through the life and writings of Jafar Pasha al-Askari, an Ottoman military officer who also served under the British Mandate.



Matthew MacLean is a graduate student at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies studying the history of the modern Middle East
Zachary J. Foster is a graduate student at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies studying the history of Greater Syria in the early twentieth century
Chris Gratien is a PhD student studying the history of the modern Middle East at Georgetown University (see academia.edu)

Note for the listener: Although this podcast is based in part on primary source research, it is also a synthesis of publicly available information and draws extensively from the following works below, which are also mentioned during the course of the episode. For the purposes of academic citation, we encourage you to consult these works.


Select Bibliography:

Al-Askari, Jafar Pasha. A Soldier’s Story: From Ottoman Rule to Independent Iraq. London: Arabian Publishing, 2004.

Antonius, George. The Arab Awakening. Safety Harbor, Florida: Simon Publications,
2001.

Batatu, Hanna. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: a Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Commercial Classes, and of its Communists, Baathists, and Free Officers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.

Dodge, Toby. Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation-Building and a History Denied. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

Al-Khattab, Raja Husayn Hosni. Taʼsīs al-jaysh al-ʻIrāqī wa-taṭawwur dawrihi al-siyāsī min 1921-1941. Baghdad: Baghdad University, 1979.

Longrigg, Stephen. Iraq, 1900 to 1950: a Political, Social, and Economic History.

Lukitz, Liora. Iraq: the Search for National Identity. London: Frank Cass, 1995.

Al-Marashi, Ibrahim, and Sammy Salama. Iraq's armed forces : an analytical history. London: Routledge, 2008.

Muhammad, ‘Ala Jasim. Jafar al-Askari wa dawruhu al-Siyasi wa al-Asraki fi tarikh al-Iraq hatta ‘am 1936. Baghdad: Maktabat al-Yazqah al-Arabiya, 1987.

Simon, Reeva S. Iraq between the Two World Wars: The Creation and Implementation
of a Nationalist Ideology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.

Sluglett, Peter. Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country, 1914-1932. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Tarbush, Mohammad. The Role of the Military in Politics: a Case Study of Iraq to 1941. London: Kegan Paul, 1982.

Reynolds, Dwight, ed. Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary
Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

Sluglett, Peter. Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country, 1914-1932. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Watenpaugh, Keith. Being Modern in the Middle East. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.