The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq. Edited by Brendan O'Leary, John McGarry and Khaled Salih. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. 384p. $45.00 cloth, $26.50 paper.

This edited volume on the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq is a genuinely honest effort at tackling the difficult issues currently confronting Kurdistan. From the outset, the editors (two of whom worked for the advisory board set up by the Kurdistan Regional Government) acknowledge that this work “is not neutral. It takes the existence of Kurdistan as a political entity as a desirable given”(i), and most of the authors adopt a sympathetic approach to Kurdistan and the Kurds of Iraq.