The Revolution of 1958 which violently overthrew the monarchical regime was a part of the revolutionary wave that has swept Arab countries in their attempts to modernize by combining elements of culture derived from Western and socialist societies with Islamic cultural and religious traditions.
This book gives the first comprehensive account of the 1958 Revolution and the political development of Iraq during the regimes of Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim, Marshal Abd al-Salam Arif and his brother, Abd al-Rahman Arif.
It discusses the causes of the ideologies which have given rise to so many actual or attempted coups d'etat within the decade 1958-68, and in particular the rivalries between pan-Arabs, Communists, adherents of the Ba'th Arab Socialist Party, and Iraqi nationalists opposed to union with other Arab countries. There is a full account of the Kurdish question and of the oil negotiations which have taken place since the 1958 Revolution.