Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime
"Sassoon has immersed himself in the documents and tapes of a regime that was meticulous in the recording of its savagery, and his scholarship imparts the original smell of fear as it elucidates. In the fast-diminishing roster of regional despots, Saddam and his personality cult came closest to being an Arab Stalin. Yet Sassoon brings out superbly that this was a system that was not totalitarian, but a balance of extreme violence and extravagant reward, a demonic machine to keep people down rather than determine what they believed. A chilling account of the inner workings of arguably the worst of the Arab security states."David Gardner, International Affairs Editor, Financial Times, and author of The Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance (2009)."An absolute must-read for anyone interested in the structure of modern Arab authoritarian political systems. This is the first inside look at Saddam Hussein's bureaucratic style of rule by rewards and punishments based on original party documents. Fair and judicious, it does much to revise the simple-minded view of the system as a totalitarian monstrosity based on Sunni domination of the Iraqi Shi'is."Roger Owen, Harvard University"An outstanding book. Sassoon takes Western readers inside the Iraqi Ba'th Party as no author has done before. Drawing on hundreds of thousands of Arabic documents and hours of recordings of Saddam's governing council at work, this book provides an unparalleled case study of authoritarian politics in the Arab world. Engagingly written and remarkably balanced, Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party is a chilling reminder of the type of regime being overthrown in the Arab Spring."Eugene Rogan, The Middle East Centre, University of Oxford"Well-organized and lucidly written, Sasson's book is a valuable contribution to the modern history of a country still in the making. It is beneficial for the specialists working on the authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes as well as for the general reads willing to learn how an ambitious young activist, rejected by the national military academy, rose to power to become the sole leader of Iraq to an extent that his name meant the country, and how he succeeded in clinging to the power until 2003."Marat Yasar, University of Toronto, Canadian Journal of History"When serious academics start their inevitable investigations of what the Saddam Hussain regime in Iraq was like, most will inevitably turn to Joseph Sassoon's impressive piece of scholarship, one that assembles under one cover the intricacies of what passed for a violent dictatorship ... The book is filled with the horrors of the regime and must be widely read to sensitive masses to genuine political atrocities. It will, hopefully, be quickly translated into Arabic so that many more readers can learn of this true tragedy."Joseph A. Kechichian, Gulf News"In this well-written and extensively researched volume, Joseph Sassoon ... provides critical insights into the functioning of the Ba'thist party and regime. Deftly analyzing the party's internal structure, intelligence organizations, and relationship with the military, as well as Saddam's personality cult, patterns of control and resistance, and bureaucracy and civil life under the Ba'th, [he] weaves a fascinating narrative of social control and repression."Eric Davis, Perspectives on Politics