Pierre Razoux is Research Director at IRSEM (Institute for Strategic Research) in Paris.
[A] heavyweight work of history…[Razoux] brings a cool, factual
approach to a large subject that has hitherto received too little
attention…Razoux’s deep research and analytical style make the book
something of a general-staff history…It adds up to something
extraordinary.
*Wall Street Journal*
Once a decade, a book appears in which the creative genius and
technical skill of the author perfectly match a vast subject. The
French defense expert Pierre Razoux’s book on the 1980–1988
Iran–Iraq war is superb and hugely topical… Razoux has a brilliant
and economical way of making what became huge and complex battles
intensely readable (the maps are excellent too)… This is a
masterwork and anyone interested in where Iran goes next—for Iraq
will surely cease to be a unitary state—should read the historian
of real genius.
*The Times*
Pierre Razoux’s The Iran-Iraq War is better by a mile than most of
the military history that floods the English market. Very topical
too since we will be getting to know Iran much more in future and
its history should be required reading.
*Evening Standard*
What emerges in illuminating detail from Razoux’s study is the
impact of the power struggle between Ayatollah Khomeini’s two
protégés, the men he promoted and protected till the end of his
life in June 1989, and left in charge of a house divided by their
rivalry: Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
*London Review of Books*
Oddly this war isn’t discussed much any more, even though it is
arguably the breakthrough event for the ongoing collapse of parts
of the Middle East…I found Pierre Razoux’s The Iran-Iraq War to be
a highly readable and useful account.
*Marginal Revolution*
This is an impressive, well-researched account of a conflict that
helped define the modern Middle East, and it explains, as Razoux
shows, much subsequent Iraqi and Iranian history… Razoux
brilliantly links the conflict to the regional and Great Power
politics of the period… Thus the Iran–Iraq war led directly into
post–Cold War geopolitics and conflict. Razoux has produced the
best book available on this important war.
*Military History*
Although it was the longest war of the 20th century and caused over
a million casualties, the Iran-Iraq War is largely forgotten by the
Western world outside of a few military analysts and Middle East
scholars…In spite of the ramifications of this war, a complete and
readable single volume narrative has not been written in the West,
until now. Razoux…has written a comprehensive and engrossing
account of this war. Using a wealth of new or untapped sources,
including the complete set of transcripts of the American
debriefing of Saddam Hussein after his capture in 2004 and numerous
interviews with Iranian and Iraqi commanders, Razoux provides
unique insights into the strategic and operational thinking of both
sides throughout the war…What makes this book so useful to both
military historians and students of Middle Eastern politics is that
Razoux is able to incorporate a complete look at the ripples caused
by this conflict throughout the Middle East and within the Cold War
as a whole…There is almost nothing occurring in the Middle East
today that wasn’t somehow influenced by this virtually unknown war.
It has been long overdue for a comprehensive single-volume history,
which this book ably fulfills. This is definitely a volume that
both military historians and Middle Eastern scholars should have on
their bookshelf.
*New York Journal of Books*
The Iran–Iraq War marked a turning point in the history of the
Middle East. One cannot comprehend the situation in the Gulf
today—the Iranian nuclear program or the political crises in
Baghdad and Tehran—without understanding the frustrations and fears
that sprang from that war.
*Diplomatie*
This is an important book, not least for the time devoted to it:
ten years’ work by the author, with hundreds of meetings and
interviews, unpublished archives, and the deciphering of the famous
audiotapes of Saddam Hussein and his staff. And for the first time,
Iranian sources are included as well… Razoux examines the military
dimension with a knack for detail and a commanding narrative sense,
but also addresses the political, diplomatic, and economic
aspects.
*Libération Week-End*
The chapter on the tribulations of the Iranian child-soldiers is
poignant, the one on the torment of the Kurds gassed at Halabja
overwhelming… It is impossible to grasp the Iraqi and Iranian
crises of the twenty-first century without going back to this
first, brutal war in the Gulf.
*Le Monde*
Razoux’s detailed, wide-ranging and elegantly written account is
the best hope we have of seeing this epoch-defining conflict for
what it was. Drawing on a decade of research, during which he
accessed Saddam's audio records of military and political meetings,
investigated Iranian sources and conducted countless interviews
with military, political and business figures from around the
world, Razoux gives the reader a uniquely broad and deep look at
the conflict…One of the most fascinating insights this book offers
is its illustration of the impact the conflict had on the Islamic
Republic of Iran and how that nation moved from fledgling
revolutionary state to an established Islamic theocracy…Razoux’s
excellent and lucidly translated study does this awful conflict
justice in an even-handed and professional manner. It is a must
read for anyone with an interest in Iran, Iraq and the region as it
stands today.
*Literary Review*
Using published Western sources, interviews, still-classified
French intelligence reports, and the translated transcripts of the
audio tapes Saddam kept of all his meetings, Razoux…has produced a
blow-by-blow military history which is the first significant
reappraisal of the war since the downfall of Saddam…Razoux writes
well on the interplay of war and politics (and has been translated
well and sympathetically); there are many insights and telling
anecdotes.
*Times Literary Supplement*
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