Endlessly intriguing and absorbing

Sir Martin Gilbert

Author, A History of the Twentieth Century

Every hour spent reading Banking on Baghdad will be well rewarded. The historical detail is fascinating; Edwin Black's mastery of it reads like a detective story and thriller combined, and the relevance of the past has seldom been so graphically portrayed. This is a gripping exposé of historic follies, fantasies and ferocity, taking place in a region that is today still a focus and storm center as it has so often been. Oil forms a twisting thread of wealth, corruption and greed. The cast of characters and their bizarre behavior could come out of a novel; but this is fact not fiction, more endlessly intriguing and absorbing than any novel could be.

Challenging and stimulating

David Nicolle

Author, The Mongol Warlords

Edwin Black has written a challenging and stimulating book on a difficult and highly controversial subject. He has asked questions that need to be asked, and has focused on aspects of several cultures — Islamic culture included — which all those interested in international relations should consider. Some of Black's conclusions will be surprising or even shocking to some people, including many Muslims and those, myself included, who adopt an almost entirely positive attitude toward Islamic civilization. Apologists for all cultures and all faiths need to take books like this very seriously and they should try to rise to the challenges which Edwin Black presents. To do so might not only help clarify misconceptions between major faith, philosophical and political groups, but could shake up some of the cozy assumptions within these groups.

Amazing and frightening

Prof. Samuel M. Edelman

Holocaust Historian

Having just returned from Iraq, reading Edwin Black's book, Banking on Baghdad, has been an eye opening experience. Black captures as few can the mix of oil, banking, nationalism, and tribalism that is at the core of Iraq. He has uncovered important nuggets of interrelationships and interconnection that are amazing and frightening. This is a book that must be read to understand why we are in Iraq.

Unforgettable picture

MAJ GEN (ret) Chris Hughes

Commander, US Forces, Najaf, April 2003

Any serious professional engaged in the Global War on Terrorism or concerned citizen who wishes to understand it better, must read Banking on Baghdad by Edwin Black. Black gets to the very root of the conflict, providing a riveting history of what is now Iraq. From the war of ideals in the days of Mohammed, the wider birth of Islam and the break between the Sunnis and the Shiites, to the murderous Mongols, foreign occupations and the associated tyranny, and the Ottoman Empire, Black paints the unforgettable picture. He shows why these age-old events are relevant today and to the foreseeable future in Iraq and the Middle East. When preparing for the Iraq war in 2003, I read five books; their accumulative worth was barely half of what I have found in Banking on Baghdad.

Provocative

Jack Weatherford

Author, Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World

In Banking on Baghdad, Edwin Black tackles the big picture of Mesopotamian history and culture in a provocative way that helps us to more clearly understand the present crisis, and makes all of us think harder.

Tremendous research

Rachel Jagoda

Executive Director, LA Museum of the Holocaust

In Banking on Baghdad, Edwin Black has crafted one of the most accessible and extraordinary historical texts in recent memory. His tremendous research reveals a story that shocks the reader to the very core. The revelations about the Grand Mufti's role in Hitler's Final Solution will chill even the most skeptical critic.

Eye-opening, clear, accurate

Shelomo Alfassa

Editor, International Sephardic Journal

From the birth of wandering nomadic Mesopotamians of time immemorial to the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Edwin Black's Banking on Baghdad clearly and accurately documents the history of this intriguing land. Black's superb volume probes deep within the evolving history of the land, documenting the variation of the Mesopotamian provinces and their religions, the intricate history of the Ottoman Empire, the Nazi-Zionist alliances and how post-Ottoman Iraq grew out of a zealous international desire for control of its multibillion-dollar petroleum resources. Black's extensive use of original sources is impressive, uncovering the important and little known facts that help make up the complex and intertwining history of Iraq. Banking on Baghdad will certainly open the eyes of those who seek to learn more about this country that is at the center of the world's attention.

Thoughtful and meticulous

Richard A. Clarke

Washington Post

Edwin Black's Banking on Baghdad underlines Iraq's long history of exploitation by Western powers and powerful corporations struggling for advantage and domination. His impressive analysis, which included looking at more than 50,000 original documents and hundreds of scholarly books and articles, provides a comprehensive history of Iraq that explains why the West's record in the region so complicates nation-building there today. Black's book is thoughtful and meticulous, though many readers may find the breadth of analysis too ambitious… His analysis, nevertheless, highlights the deficit of legitimacy the United States faces in Iraq and the wider Middle East.

Powerful. Evocative. Taut.

Richard Pachter

Miami Herald

Banking on Baghdad is Edwin Black's powerful new study of Iraq's place in the world… Black's prose is solid and evocative throughout. His taut description of the atrocities visited upon the region's Muslims, first by each other, and later, Genghis Khan's Mongols, is vivid and chilling. For those interested in business history, his study of the relationship between commercial and political interests, especially the company that eventually became British Petroleum, is well worth the price of admission. There's also ample material to draw from to consider the future path of Iraq. Black is committed, if not obsessed, with hyper-intensive research and documentation. His books are copiously footnoted and referenced. Given the seriousness and scope of the subjects, this is an absolute necessity.

A determined effort

Rosemary Herbert`

Journalist, Boston Herald

Edwin Black makes a determined effort to elucidate why Iraq has been a center of commerce and turmoil for thousands of years. Even before industrialized society became dependent on its black gold, he writes, the area was "the intersection of intellectual and commercial exchange" and a target for invaders. Black looks at everything from the 13th-century Mongol invasion to today's war profiteering in this ambitious volume.

Remarkably thorough

Adam Daifallah

Montreal Gazette

Nothing in Iraq's history has ever been pretty or easy. As investigative reporter Edwin Black chronicles in Banking on Baghdad, Mesopotamia — the land known as the "cradle of civilization" — has had one of the world's most unstable, troubled and bloody histories. This book could just as well have been called A Short History of Iraq. But this is much more than a primer. In the span of 400-odd pages, Black covers remarkably thoroughly the minutiae of thousands of years of geographical, political and religious history. And what a fascinating history. Iraq has come a long way from its pre-biblical status as a centre of medical, artistic and intellectual prowess. Black takes us through the various occupations of Mesopotamia over the centuries by everyone from Genghis Khan to the Ottomans to the British, and in acute detail. Black tries to show that the reason so much attention has been paid to Iraq, especially in the modern era, is its oil. He does so fairly convincingly. Particularly interesting is Black's exploration of the (thankfully unsuccessful) Nazi posturing to seize Iraq's crude in the Second World War.

A gripping story

Patrick Clawson

Middle East Quarterly

Black's fascinating account brings Iraq's rich history vividly to life. The author has a wonderful ability to turn historical events, obscure to most Western readers, into a gripping story … The standard of scholarship is excellent.