NELIDA FUCCARO, The Other Kurds: Yazidis in Colonial Iraq, Library of Modern Middle East Studies, vol. 14 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999). Pp. 246. $55 cloth.

Extract

The Other Kurds: Yazidis in Colonial Iraq offers an ambitious effort to reinterpret communal identities in Iraq during the British Mandate. Although this work focuses explicitly on Yazidis, Fuccaro engages the ongoing debate about the process of group identity formation in non-national states. In this monograph, Fuccaro argues that changing Yazidi communal identities are constructed within a broader context of government centralization, national identity formation, and British Mandatory rule. She shows that this context is crucial in understanding the reconstruction of Yazidi collective self-definitions.