The Ottoman Origins of Modern Iraq

As a result of the various reforms of the mid-nineteenth century Tanzimat ('reorganisation') era, Ottoman authority in Iraq was much stronger and better administered by the 1870s, than it had been when the Ottomans imposed direct rule over the region in the 1830s. Drawing upon original source documents, Ebubekir Ceylan provides the first comprehensive study of the Tanzimat reforms in Iraq in the nineteenth century, focusing on aspects of political reform, modernization and development and analyzing both the successes and failures of the reform process. The reforms included administrative and military centralization, the establishment of provincial councils and these, as well as the Ottoman tribal policy and the Ottoman contribution to the modernization of urban life and infrastructure. Ceylan demonstrates that the origins of modern Iraq can be found in the period of Ottoman rule in the nineteenth century.