Kurdistan: THE MOUNTAINS REMEMBER: A 7,000-Year History of the Kurdish People, from the Zagros to the Modern World (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798189935725)

No country called Kurdistan appears on any official map - and yet tens of millions of Kurds, across Türkiye, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and a global diaspora, know exactly where home is. Kurdistan: The Mountains Remember is a complete history of the Kurdish people, tracing their story from the first farming villages of the Zagros mountains through the Medes, Saladin and the Ayyubid dynasty, the age of the Kurdish principalities, and the treaties that divided the Kurdish homeland among four modern states - up through the Anfal genocide, the rise of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the war against ISIS, the Yazidi genocide at Sinjar, and the unresolved question of Kurdish independence today.

Written for readers with no prior background in Kurdish or Middle Eastern history, this book moves through fourteen chapters that combine narrative history with a rigorous evidence-grading method - clearly separating documented fact from cultural memory, legend, and contested nationalist theory - so readers can trust what they're reading even on the most disputed questions, including the long-debated links between ancient Kurdish ancestry and the wider Indo-Iranian and South Asian world.

Inside you'll find:

• The full sweep of Kurdish history - Gutians, Hurrians, Medes, Saladin, the Ottoman-era Kurdish principalities, and the twentieth century's rebellions, genocide, and autonomy
• Honest treatment of Kurdish religious diversity: Sunni and Shia Islam, Alevism, Yazidism, Yarsanism, and Kurdish Christian and Jewish history
• A clear-eyed, non-partisan account of the Kurds in Türkiye, Iraq, Iran, and Syria
• The Anfal genocide, Halabja, the 1991 uprising, ISIS, the Sinjar genocide against the Yazidis, and the 2017 independence referendum
• A full historical timeline, glossary, leader biographies, and a guide to Kurdish languages, religions, cuisine, and political parties

For readers of Middle Eastern history, genocide studies, and the modern politics of the Kurds - and for anyone who has ever asked why Kurdistan isn't a country.