Hanna Batatu

Hanna Batatu
حنّا بطاطو
Born	1926 Jerusalem,Mandatory Palestine
Died	24 June 2000 Winsted, Connecticut
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 aPalestinianMarxisthistorian specialising in the history ofIraqand the modernArab east.His work on Iraq is widely considered the preeminent study of modern Iraqi history.

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).

Further reading

• 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