Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party
Inside an Authoritarian Regime

A unique and revealing portrait of Saddam Hussein's Iraq which was every bit as authoritarian and brutal as Stalin's Russia or Mao's China.

Joseph Sassoon (Author)

9780521149150, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 12 December 2011

338 pages, 16 b/w illus. 1 map 6 tables
22.6 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.45 kg

'… an impressively researched and perceptive book.' Weldon C. Matthews, Arab Studies Journal

The Ba'th Party came to power in 1968 and remained for thirty-five years, until the 2003 US invasion. Under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq in 1979, a powerful authoritarian regime was created based on a system of violence and an extraordinary surveillance network, as well as reward schemes and incentives for supporters of the party. The true horrors of this regime have been exposed for the first time through a massive archive of government documents captured by the United States after the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is these documents that form the basis of this extraordinarily revealing book and that have been translated and analyzed by Joseph Sassoon, an Iraqi-born scholar and seasoned commentator on the Middle East. They uncover the secrets of the innermost workings of Hussein's Revolutionary Command Council, how the party was structured, how it operated via its network of informers and how the system of rewards functioned.

1. The rise of the Ba'th party
2. Party structure and organization
3. The Ba'th party branches
4. Security organizations during the Ba'th era
5. The Ba'th and the army
6. The personality cult of Saddam Hussein
7. Control and resistance
8. Bureaucracy and civil life under the Ba'th.

Subject Areas: Political oppression & persecution [JPVR], Political leaders & leadership [JPHL], Islamic studies [JFSR2], Islam [HRH], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]