The Iran-Iraq War - Hardcover

Pierre Razoux; Nicholas Elliott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674088638 ISBN 13: 9780674088634

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2015

Synopsis

From 1980 to 1988 Iran and Iraq fought the longest war of the century. It included the tragic slaughter of child soldiers, the use of chemical weapons, the striking of civilian shipping, and the destruction of cities. Pierre Razoux offers an unflinching look at a conflict seared into the region's collective memory but little understood in the West.

About this title

Review:

An Evening Standard Best Book of 2015

"Pierre Razoux's The Iran-Iraq War is better by a mile than most of the military history that floods the English market.Very topical too since we will be getting to know Iran much more in future and its history should be required reading."

Evening Standard

"Razoux, research director at the Institute for Strategic Research in Paris, has made use of archival material available after the fall of Hussein. He has consolidated a large number of previous accounts of the war and interviewed key figures; this book follows the developments with meticulous cataloging of dates and troop numbers [...]" --The Scotsman

"Once a decade, a book appears in which the creative genius and technical skill of the author perfectly match a vast subject. The French defence expert Pierre Razoux's book on the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war is superb and hugely topical [...] Razoux has a brilliant and economical way of making what became huge and complex battles intensely readable (the maps are excellent too) [...] One of the many merits of Razoux's book is that subjects that might have resulted in pages of Fergal Keane-style sentimental guff are almost coldly treated [...] This is a masterwork and anyone interested in where Iran goes next, for Iraq will surely cease to be a unitary state, should read the historian of real genius."The Times

"The first significant reappraisal of the war since the downfall of Saddam [...] Razoux writes well on the interplay of war and politics (and has been translated well and sympathetically); there are many insights and telling anecdotes [...] Although Pierre Razoux's book contains much that was already known, its clear explanation of the zigzagging policies which prolonged the war, is impressive." --Times Literary Supplement

"The Iran-Iraq War offers as useful a case study as any in how conflicts begin and are brought to an end [...] we have reason to be grateful to Razoux, who between chapters zooms out of the battlefield to focus on the international power struggles and diplomacy that helped shape various confrontations in the war [...] What emerges in illuminating detail from Razoux s study is the impact of the power struggle between Ayatollah Khomeini's two protégés [...] Razoux highlights the critical role of oil, which, even if it wasn't the 'casus belli', informed the actions of all the key players, Iran and Iraq included, as in their repeated targeting of oil infrastructure and shipping." --London Review of Books

About the Author:

Pierre Razoux is Research Director at IRSEM (Institute for Strategic Research) in Paris.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0674088638
• ISBN 13: 9780674088634
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 580