Glanz on Patrick Cockburn’s “Moqtada”

According to James Glanz (NY Times), Patrick Cockburn's (a former ISP, PCR Project Fellow) newest book, "Muqtada," "goes a long way toward helping us understand the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr by following his family through the modern history of Iraq."

The freshness and even brilliance of the book’s best chapters are that they do not rehash the ways in which the supposed blunders of the Western powers after the invasion helped create the current chaos in Iraq. Instead, Cockburn largely examines the peculiar internal dynamics of Iraq, as created by the twisting strands of revolution, assassination, religious authority, political oppression and prominent Shiite families like the Sadrs. In telling this story, Cockburn argues that early descriptions of Moktada as some mix of Mafia don, opportunistic thug and renegade holy man had it wrong.

I strongly encourage you to read both the article and the book. Glanz does a remarkable job of providing background knowledge as a way to review the book. "Muqtada" has received very high praise and is sure to "immediately become one of a small handful of books that are required reading for anyone who wants to unravel the meaning of events in Iraq five years into the war."