The story of Iraqi women before and after Washington's "liberation." Haifa Zangana presents the first comprehensive history of women in modern Iraq through the US occupation.

Positioning Iraqi women today in a long line of daring and vocal activists resisting foreign aggression and despotism for the past hundred years, Zangana traces this lineage from the emergence of a handful of turn-of-the-century poets, to women's mass membership in politically affiliated women's leagues, to 1960s activists in armed struggle (of which she was a part), to the paradox of women's rising status under decades of repressive Ba'ath rule (when they were the most educated in the Arab world), to suicide bombers today.

Zangana contradicts the passive role into which Western media have cast Iraqi women, and presents a forceful critique of foreign non-governmental women's organisations' attempts to hijack the initiatives of Iraqi women. Addressing the stark realities of Iraq under occupation, she reveals Baghdad as a "city of widows," where more than 300,000 women have been left to head households.

Just as sanctions disproportionately affected women and children, the war and occupation have destroyed their ways of life. In the rebuilding of Iraq, as so often before, Zangana suggests, Iraqi women will be left to pick up the pieces of their country after yet another senseless imperial adventure.

"Putting the current moment in perspective with an engaging history of women's rights in Iraq, Zangana convincingly identifies the current Iraqi moment as 'a terrible state of regression.' This angry, unforgiving and powerful book is as vital as it is hard to swallow." - Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

About Haifa Zangana:

Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi political commentator, novelist, and former political prisoner of Saddam Hussein's regime. She is an adviser to Arab Media Watch on Iraqi affairs, a weekly columnist for Al Quds newspaper, and a commentator for The Guardian, Red Pepper and Al Ahram Weekly. Zangana lectures regularly on Iraqi culture, literature, and women issues.

Born in Baghdad, she worked with the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Damascus, Syria, in 1975, and has lived in London since 1976. Zangana has worked as an adviser for the United Nations Development Programme, writing a report on empowerment of women in the Arab world, and as a member of the advisory board of a Brussels tribunal on Iraq.

She co-founded Act Together: Women Action for Iraq, and is the chair of Iraqi Patriots in Media and Culture. Zangana was a founding member of the International Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, and edited and published Halabja, an homage to the eponymous Kurdish town by Iraqi and Arab writers and artists.

Through the Vast Halls of Memory, her biographical novel, was published in English in 1990, reprinted in 1991, and published in Arabic in 1995. Three collections of short stories followed: The Ant's Nest (1996), Beyond What the Eye Sees (1997) and The Presence of Others (1999). She has since published two more novels: Keys to a City in 2000 and Women on a Journey in 2001.

As the dreadful reality of the Coalition's defeat in Iraq begins to sink in, one question dominates Washington and London: why? In this controversial new book, award-winning journalist Jonathan Steele provides a stark and arresting answer: Bush and Blair were defeated from the day they decided to occupy the country. Iraq had had enough of foreign armies.

Steele describes for the first time the memories of centuries of humiliations that have scarred the Iraqi national psyche, creating a powerful and deeply felt nationalism. The road to Baghdad along which the first Humvees so confidently rolled was bristling with such cultural landmines.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews, Steele shows for the first time how the invasion and occupation were perceived by ordinary Iraqis, whose feelings and experiences Western policymakers were never interested in. The result of such arrogance, Steele demonstrates, was a failure that it will resonate alongside names like Vietnam and Suez for decades to come.

Blending vivid reportage, informed analysis and sweeping historical narrative, "Defeat" is the definitive anatomy of this historic catastrophe.

"This is a superb book - the best account so far of what went wrong in Iraq, and why. Measured, highly intelligent, and written from personal observation by perhaps the best foreign correspondent working in British journalism, it examines why the occupation of Iraq turned into the disaster it did, and not simply how it happened. With immense care and first-hand knowledge, Jonathan Steele has written the one indispensable account of the whole disturbing, thoughtless, cynical process." - John Simpson, World Affairs Editor, BBC

"Written with penetrating intelligence and deep knowledge, drawing on his own courageous reporting from Iraq and the region and genuine comprehension of the rich and complex historical background of the awful events taking place before our eyes." - Noam Chomsky

About Jonathan Steele:

Jonathan Steele is Senior Foreign Correspondent and in-house columnist on international affairs for The Guardian. He graduated from Cambridge University in 1963 before spending two years at Yale, where he obtained an MA in economics.

Steele has reported for the Guardian since 1965, where his positions have included Bureau Chief in London and Moscow. He was the only English-language reporter to reach Mikhail Gorbachev's prison dacha during the August 1991 coup, and the subsequent interview he gained with the Russian President won him the London Press Club's Scoop of the Year award.

In his present role Steele travels frequently to the Middle East, and has contributed to the Guardian's coverage of Iraq since the start of the war. He has twice been named International Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards, the British equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. He has also won the same title at the Amnesty International annual awards.

In 1998, Steele won the James Cameron award for "work as a journalist that combined moral vision and professional integrity." In 2006, he won the Martha Gellhorn special award for "consistently high-quality journalism." A frequent broadcaster on the BBC and CNN, Steele has written numerous books on international affairs.