Overview
On April 10, 2003, as the world watched a statue of Saddam Hussein come crashing down in the heart of Baghdad, a mob of looters attacked the Iraq National Museum. Despite the presence of an American tank unit, the pillaging went unchecked, and more than 15,000 artifacts—some of the oldest evidence of human culture—disappeared into the shadowy worldwide market in illicit antiquities. In the five years since that day, the losses have only mounted, with gangs digging up roughly half a million artifacts that had previously been unexcavated; the loss to our shared human heritage is incalculable.
With The Rape of Mesopotamia, Lawrence Rothfield answers the complicated question of how this wholesale thievery was allowed to occur. Drawing on extensive interviews with soldiers, bureaucrats, war planners, archaeologists, and collectors, Rothfield reconstructs the planning failures—originating at the highest levels of the U.S. government—that led to the invading forces’ utter indifference to the protection of Iraq’s cultural heritage from looters. Widespread incompetence and miscommunication on the part of the Pentagon, unchecked by the disappointingly weak advocacy efforts of worldwide preservation advocates, enabled a tragedy that continues even today, despite widespread public outrage.
Bringing his story up to the present, Rothfield argues forcefully that the international community has yet to learn the lessons of Iraq—and that what happened there is liable to be repeated in future conflicts. A powerful, infuriating chronicle of the disastrous conjunction of military adventure and cultural destruction, The Rape of Mesopotamia is essential reading for all concerned with the future of our past.
Synopsis
On April 10, 2003, as the world watched a statue of Saddam Hussein come crashing down in the heart of Baghdad, a mob of looters attacked the Iraq National Museum. Despite the presence of an American tank unit, the pillaging went unchecked, and more than 15,000 artifacts—some of the oldest evidence of human culture—disappeared into the shadowy worldwide market in illicit antiquities. In the five years since that day, the losses have only mounted, with gangs digging up roughly half a million artifacts that had previously been unexcavated; the loss to our shared human heritage is incalculable.
With The Rape of Mesopotamia, Lawrence Rothfield answers the complicated question of how this wholesale thievery was allowed to occur. Drawing on extensive interviews with soldiers, bureaucrats, war planners, archaeologists, and collectors, Rothfield reconstructs the planning failures—originating at the highest levels of the U.S. government—that led to the invading forces’ utter indifference to the protection of Iraq’s cultural heritage from looters. Widespread incompetence and miscommunication on the part of the Pentagon, unchecked by the disappointingly weak advocacy efforts of worldwide preservation advocates, enabled a tragedy that continues even today, despite widespread public outrage.
Bringing his story up to the present, Rothfield argues forcefully that the international community has yet to learn the lessons of Iraq—and that what happened there is liable to be repeated in future conflicts. A powerful, infuriating chronicle of the disastrous conjunction of military adventure and cultural destruction, The Rape of Mesopotamia is essential reading for all concerned with the future of our past.
Publishers Weekly
On the list of things that went wrong with the Iraq War, the wholesale destruction of that country's archeological inheritance often goes unmentioned. The average newspaper reader may recall that the Iraq National Museum was badly looted in the aftermath of initial hostilities, but very few realize how entirely predictable the looting was, how negligible the Bush administration's efforts were to prevent it and how far beyond the museum the thefts extended, and still continue. In this "autopsy of a cultural disaster," Rothfield (Vital Signs) breaks down the disaster into its discrete parts, using the looting as a perfect metaphor for the failures of planning and execution that have characterized the conflict thus far. Referencing Colin Powell's famous "Pottery Barn rule" ("You break it, you own it"), Rothfield writes, "The barn door knocked in by the Americans remains wide open, and Iraq's cultural heritage is being broken day by day.... [T]he loss is not just to Iraq but to us all." It may not carry the bombast and thrill of other war accounts, but this book serves as a frightening cautionary tale. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Editorials
Chicago Tribune
"A lucid, well-researched book [that] explains why the sacking of the National Museum of Iraq and the ongoing looting of archaeological sites throughout that country matter so much, and what could have been done to prevent the tragedy."--Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
— Julia Keller
Marginal Revolution
"The definitive book on its topic."—Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
— Tyler Cowen
The National
"Rothfield puts into play some critical--and until now largely ignored--questions about the role of cultural expertise in 21st century warfare.. . . It is one of the merits of Rothfield's meticulous account that it shies away from a simple explanation. Instead, The Rape of Mesopotamia shows, again and again, how mutual suspicion between archaeologists and museum officials prevented the formation of a more unified front for dealing with the byzantine Washington bureaucracy."--The National
— Hugh Eaken
San Francisco Chronicle
"Rothfield's mournful probe blends fact-finding and distillation of published work. Short and terse, it's a manual for policymakers about a colossal failure, and a reminder that enforcement could have minimized looting of the country's cultural treasures."--San Francisco Chronicle
— David D'Arcy
The Toronto Star
"A blow-by-blow account, unsparing to most of the players while praising a very few, The Rape of Mesopotamia builds its own kind of momentum as we watch the unfolding of yet another appalling crime against humanity's common heritage."--The Toronto Star
Times Higher Education
"The Rape of Mesopotamia is an important book and one that should be read by anyone interested in the Iraq War, US foreign policy or modern history, as well as by members of the cultural heritage community. The book is not primarily about cultural heritage per se, but is above all a political history of an important event in recent world history, and as such should be of as much interest to the general as to the academic reader."--Times Higher Education
Harper's
“[I]t . . . completely upends the heroic World War II narratives that still shape our notions of the inevitable benevolence of American military interventions.”--Benjamin Moser, Harper's
N+1
"Lawrence Rothfield has produced an expose tha
— Alexander Bevilacqua
The Star
"Its blow-by-blow account, unsparing to most of the playerss while praising a very few, builds its own kind of momentum as we watch the unfolding of yet another appalling crime against humanity's common cultural heritage."
— Hans Werner
Al-Ahram
"While Rothfield''s book recounts a mostly sorry tale of official failure and insouciance, he is to be thanked for his own painstaking work of historical reconstruction."THES
"An important book and one that should be read by anyone interested in the Iraq War, US foreign policy or modern history, as well as by members of the cultural heritage community. The book is not primarily about cultural heritage per se, but is above all a political history of an important event in recent world history, and as such should be of as much interest to the general public as to the academic reader."
— Johan Franzen
Times Literary Supplement
"Rothfield tells this story with clarity and precision. . . . Even today there are those who deny that anything of value was lost or that sites were significantly damaged, despite the overwhelming objective evidence to the contrary. . . . This books shows that the claim that the damage could not have been anticipated, and the refusal to believe it actually happened, are inexcusable."--Times Literary Supplement
— Paul Zimansky
Chicago Tribune
"A lucid, well-researched book [that] explains why the sacking of the National Museum of Iraq and the ongoing looting of archaeological sites throughout that country matter so much, and what could have been done to prevent the tragedy."--Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune— Julia Keller
San Francisco Chronicle
"Rothfield''s mournful probe blends fact-finding and distillation of published work. Short and terse, it''s a manual for policymakers about a colossal failure, and a reminder that enforcement could have minimized looting of the country''s cultural treasures."--San Francisco Chronicle— David D'Arcy
Times Higher Education
"The Rape of Mesopotamia is an important book and one that should be read by anyone interested in the Iraq War, US foreign policy or modern history, as well as by members of the cultural heritage community. The book is not primarily about cultural heritage per se, but is above all a political history of an important event in recent world history, and as such should be of as much interest to the general as to the academic reader."--Times Higher EducationThe Toronto Star
"A blow-by-blow account, unsparing to most of the players while praising a very few, The Rape of Mesopotamia builds its own kind of momentum as we watch the unfolding of yet another appalling crime against humanity''s common heritage."--The Toronto StarHarper's
"[I]t . . . completely upends the heroic World War II narratives that still shape our notions of the inevitable benevolence of American military interventions."--Benjamin Moser, Harper''sThe Star
"Its blow-by-blow account, unsparing to most of the playerss while praising a very few, builds its own kind of momentum as we watch the unfolding of yet another appalling crime against humanity''s common cultural heritage."— Hans Werner
The National
"Rothfield puts into play some critical--and until now largely ignored--questions about the role of cultural expertise in 21st century warfare.. . . It is one of the merits of Rothfield''s meticulous account that it shies away from a simple explanation. Instead, The Rape of Mesopotamia shows, again and again, how mutual suspicion between archaeologists and museum officials prevented the formation of a more unified front for dealing with the byzantine Washington bureaucracy."--The National— Hugh Eaken
N+1
"Lawrence Rothfield has produced an expose tha— Alexander Bevilacqua
Marginal Revolution
"The definitive book on its topic."-Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution— Tyler Cowen
THES
"An important book and one that should be read by anyone interested in the Iraq War, US foreign policy or modern history, as well as by members of the cultural heritage community. The book is not primarily about cultural heritage per se, but is above all a political history of an important event in recent world history, and as such should be of as much interest to the general public as to the academic reader."— Johan Franzen
Publishers Weekly
On the list of things that went wrong with the Iraq War, the wholesale destruction of that country's archeological inheritance often goes unmentioned. The average newspaper reader may recall that the Iraq National Museum was badly looted in the aftermath of initial hostilities, but very few realize how entirely predictable the looting was, how negligible the Bush administration's efforts were to prevent it and how far beyond the museum the thefts extended, and still continue. In this "autopsy of a cultural disaster," Rothfield (Vital Signs) breaks down the disaster into its discrete parts, using the looting as a perfect metaphor for the failures of planning and execution that have characterized the conflict thus far. Referencing Colin Powell's famous "Pottery Barn rule" ("You break it, you own it"), Rothfield writes, "The barn door knocked in by the Americans remains wide open, and Iraq's cultural heritage is being broken day by day.... [T]he loss is not just to Iraq but to us all." It may not carry the bombast and thrill of other war accounts, but this book serves as a frightening cautionary tale. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
Rothfield (director, Cultural Policy Ctr., Univ. of Chicago; Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection After the Iraq War) here recounts the tragic and disastrous events that befell the Iraq Museum following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. His sobering account shows not only how fragile a nation's past truly is but that national history is typically at the bottom of the list when collateral damage from military operations is being considered. The museum's demise and the continued downward spiral of Iraq's national heritage following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime strongly indicate that the country's cultural legacy does not figure largely in plans for postwar reconstruction. VERDICT Rothfield's investigations into the demise of the Iraq Museum and how it could have been avoided had allied American and British military and political officials paid attention is a curt yet serious indictment of our post-9/11 age. Appropriate for both general and more scholarly readers, especially those interested in the interrelationships between politics and culture.—John E. Dockall, Prewitt & Assoc., Inc. Austin, TX
—John E. Dockall