Hanna Batatu
Hanna Batatu | |
---|---|
حنّا بطاطو | |
Born | 1926 |
Died | 24 June 2000 |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Walsh School of Foreign ServiceHarvard University |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Historian |
Institutions | American University of BeirutGeorgetown University |
Hanna Batatu(Arabic:حنّا بطاطو,Ḥannā Baṭāṭu) (1926 inJerusalem– 24 June 2000 inWinsted, Connecticut,U.S.) was aPalestinianMarxist[1][2]historian specialising in the history ofIraqand the modernArab east.His work on Iraq is widely considered the preeminent study of modern Iraqi history.[3]
Born inJerusalemin 1926 to aPalestinian Arab Christianfamily, Hanna Batatu emigrated to theUnited Statesin 1948, the year of theNakba- the Palestinian exodus that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel, andcreated a large Palestinian refugee populationbarred by the new state from returning to their homes. From 1951 to 1953, he studied atGeorgetown University'sEdmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.He gained his doctorate at political science inHarvard Universityin 1960, with a dissertation titledThe Shaykh and the Peasant in Iraq, 1917-1958.From 1962 to 1982 he taught at theAmerican University of Beirut,then from 1982 until his retirement in 1994 atGeorgetown Universityin the United States.
Batatu started studying Iraqi history in the 1950s, taking a particular interest in the revolutionary movements that were then prominent in that country and especially in theIraqi Communist Party.From the late 1950s on he traveled to Iraq several times, and succeeded in having access to communist political prisoners and secret police files before the revolution of 1958. He was allowed access to security service archives from various periods of Iraqi history, up until the 1970s, and used this and his considerable range of personal contacts with figures from different political movements to compose his study of political change in Iraq,The Old Social Classes and New Revolutionary Movements of Iraq(published in 1978). This work, although largely focusing on the Iraqi Communist Party, also provides a wealth of information about the other revolutionary movements in the country as well as the ruling classes prior to 1958, and is considered one of the fundamental works on modern Iraqi history. Batatu'smethodologyis grounded inpolitical sociologyand considers in detail the social factors for the developments he covers, and even more so the social composition of the movements in question.
Batatu also undertook a similar study ofSyria,Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics(published in 1999).
References
[edit]- ^Allawi, Ali A.The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace.New Haven, CT:Yale University Press,2007.ISBN0-300-11015-4,ISBN978-0-300-11015-9.P. 463.
- ^Becker, Richard (22 April 2004).Iraqi revolt against the British and Iraqi Resistance Today.Archived fromthe originalon 31 July 2009.Retrieved9 March2009.
- ^Barnes, Bart. "Scholar Hanna Batatu, 74, Dies; Authority on Modern Iraq, Syria".The Washington Post.28 June 2000.
Further reading
[edit]- The Egyptian, Syrian, And Iraqi Revolutions Some Observations On Their Underlying Causes And Social Character,Hanna Batatu, 1983
- The old social classes and the revolutionary movements of Iraq: A study of Iraq's old landed and commercial classes and of its communists, Ba'thists, and free officers,Hanna Batatu, London, al-Saqi Books, 2012.ISBN0863567711(first edition 1978)
- Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics,Hanna Batatu,Princeton University Press,2012.ISBN140084584X
External links
[edit]- 1926 births
- 2000 deaths
- People from Jerusalem
- Academic staff of the American University of Beirut
- American writers of Palestinian descent
- Palestinian socialists
- Walsh School of Foreign Service alumni
- Georgetown University faculty
- Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
- Historians of the Middle East
- Historians of Iraq
- Historians of Syria
- Palestinian Marxist historians
- 20th-century Palestinian historians
- Palestinian Marxists
- Emigrants from Mandatory Palestine to the United States
- American Marxist historians
- 20th-century American historians