Baghdad Sketches

Journeys Through Iraq

Freya Stark (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

224 Seiten

2011
I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd. (Verlag)
978-1-84885-655-4 (ISBN)

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Freya Stark was witness to the rise and fall of the British involvement in the country as well as the early years of independence. Painting a portrait of both the political and social preoccupations of the day as exquisitely as she does the people and landscapes of Iraq, this is a remarkable portrait of the country as it once was.

During her many years in Iraq, Freya Stark was witness to the rise and fall of the British involvement in the country as well as the early years of independence.

Freya Stark first journeyed to Iraq in 1927. Seven years after the establishment of the British Mandate, the modern state was in its infancy and worlds apart from the country it has since become. Typically - and controversially - she chose to live outside the close-knit western expatriate scene and immersed herself in the way of life of ordinary Iraqis - living in the 'native' quarter of the city and spending time with its tribal sheikhs and leaders.

Venturing out of Baghdad, she travelled to Mosul, Nineveh, Tikrit and Najaf, where she perceptively describes the millennia-old tensions between Sunni and Shi'a, time not having dissipated their hatred. In the 1940s she returned again, this time travelling south, to the Marsh Arabs, whose way of life has now all but disappeared; north into Kurdistan and later, Kuwait, in the days before the oil boom.

Painting a portrait of both the political and social preoccupations of the day as exquisitely as she does the people and landscapes of Iraq, Baghdad Sketches is a remarkable portrait of the country as it once was.

Freya Stark (1893-1993), 'the poet of travel', was the doyenne of Middle East travel writers and one of the most courageous and adventurous women travellers in history. She travelled extensively through Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Southern Arabia, where she became the first western woman to travel through the Hadhramaut. Usually solo, she ventured to places few Europeans had ever been. Her travels earned her the Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and she was created a Dame in 1975. She received huge public acclaim and her many, now classic, books include Traveller's Prelude, The Valleys of the Assassins, Ionia, The Southern Gates of Arabia, Alexander's Path, Dust in the Lion's Paw and East is West.

List of Illustration
Preface
The Desert Route

An Introduction from Damascus

In the Moslem Quarter
Marie the Armenian
Life in the Slum
The Making of a Nationalist
Concerning Smells
A Chapter of Discord
The Life of the River
A Visit in the Desert
European and American Ladies in Iraq
The Social Status of Ladies
Concerning Manners
A Syriac Christmas
Education
Ramadhan
The Fellahin
The Nisibin Road
The Young Effendi and the Sentimental Traveller
The Devil-Worshippers
The Death of Mandali
The Kuwait Journey
Kuwait. II 1937
Failichah
The “Slaves” Club
Cosmetics
Builton Sand
The 'Ashura
One of the Four Holy Cities of Iraq
Samarra and Tekrit
Nejf

Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	18.1.2011
Sprache	englisch
Maße	129 x 198 mm
Gewicht	246 g
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
	Reisen ► Reiseberichte
	Reisen ► Reiseführer ► Naher Osten
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
ISBN-10	1-84885-655-5 / 1848856555
ISBN-13	978-1-84885-655-4 / 9781848856554
Zustand	Neuware