Steve Lonergan

NEWLY RELEASED! The Ghosts of Iraq’s Marshes: A History of Conflict, Tragedy, and Restoration, by Steve Lonergan and Jassim Al-Asadi, in collaboration with Keith Holmes. The American University in Cairo Press. Includes six maps, four satellite images, and 25 photographs. Available from Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Target, or AUC Press.

“Ghosts” has been selected by Foreign Affairs Magazine as one of the best books of 2024!

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/lists/best-books-2024

Book Review by Lisa Anderson (Foreign Affairs, November/December, 2024)

 A stunningly lyrical evocation of the marshes of southern Iraq and the people who call them home, this book follows the life of the irrigation engineer Jassim Al-Asadi. From his childhood in the wetlands to his university education in Baghdad (which included a stint in Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s prisons) to his lifelong efforts as an advocate and activist to protect, save, and eventually restore the landscapes and livelihoods of the region, Al-Asadi’s life follows the arc of modern Iraqi history. He witnessed the devastating battles of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the ruinous 1990 Iraqi invasion of and subsequent retreat from neighboring Kuwait, the failed uprising in the early 1990s against Saddam’s government and the reprisals of a spiteful regime bent on draining and destroying the marshes, and the chaotic collapse of infrastructure in the wake of the U.S. invasion in 2003. Despite all these upheavals, the love of the people of the marshes for their remarkable homeland is undiminished. Weaving poetry and environmental science, political analysis and ancient history, mythology and hydrology, the book is at once an edifying and captivating tale about a region threatened yet again by human failures, now in the form of climate change.

Book Summary:

The Ghosts of the Iraqi Marshes tells the history of the creation, destruction, and revitalization of Iraq’s Marshes and their inhabitants against the backdrop of the dramatic events that have convulsed Iraq in the past fifty years. It follows the life of Jassim al-Asadi, an irrigation engineer who grew up in the Marshes, was jailed and tortured under Saddam Hussein, and who subsequently dedicated his life to the reflooding and restoration of the Marshes. He eventually contributed to the Marshes being declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Jassim is eminently relatable, and the stories of his life and other Marsh dwellers are infused with pathos, tragedy, humor, and passion.

 The Mesopotamian Marshes in southern Iraq , once among the largest wetlands on the planet, have been inhabited for thousands of years by the Ma’dan, or Marsh Arabs, but they remain remote, isolated, and virtually unknown. In the early 1990s, the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein drained the Marshes and set out to destroy not only a critical ecosystem, but a unique culture as well. It stands as one of the greatest environmental and humanitarian disasters of the 20th Century. In the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, local residents destroyed the earthen dams built to divert water from the wetlands and the Marshes were reflooded. Their future, however, is in peril.

Quotes:

“The Ghosts of Iraq’s Marshes is a revelation. With compelling accounts of both human and natural history, the authors paint an indelible portrait of an ecosystem that shaped a people and the cruel attempt to destroy it. A its heart is a personal story of loss and endurance, as well as a cautionary talke of all we stand to lose when water is used as a weapon.” - Brian Payton, author of The Wind is Not a River.

“Emotionally gripping and beautifully illustrated, the book gives the reader an insider’s insight into the competing politics and economic priorities which threaten the very existence of the Marshes and the unique Marsh Arab culture, one of the world’s oldest, totally ecologically attuned to their green water world.” - Mark Nelson, Institute of Ecotechnics

“This book offers an incredible repository on a vital history that could have remained untold, and a rare insight into a community whose ecological knowledge of thriving with water and nature has survived 233 generations. Superbly researched and offering a multitude of narratives that flow seamlessly from personal reflection, to biographical narration, then to historical account, the reader is drawn deeply into another time and world.” - Julia Watson, author of LO-TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism.

Media Links

The Globe and Mail (Canada, May 11, 2024):  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-in-the-ghosts-of-iraqs-marshes-steve-lonergan-and-jassim-al-asadi-dive/

Al Jazeera (May 4, 2024):  https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/5/4/dont-be-afraid-for-the-marshes-the-battle-to-save-iraqs-waterways

Jadalliya – NEWTON (New Texts Out Now: 04/29/2024): https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/45949/Steve-Lonergan-and-Jassim-Al-Asadi,-in-collaboration-with-Keith-Holmes,-The-Ghosts-of-Iraq’s-Marshes-Conflict,-Tragedy,-and-Restoration-New-Texts-Out-Now

Journal of Peace Research (June 4, 2024): https://www.prio.org/journals/jpr/booknotes/400.

Read an excerpt from Chapter 1: Organizing the Netherworld

Short Biographies of Authors

Canada/Iraq Marshlands Initiative (CIMI)

Restoring the Marshes of southern Iraq:

The Canadian/Iraq Marshlands Initiative, or CIMI, was initially funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to support international efforts to restore and preserve the important wetlands systems of southern Iraq that were drained by the Iraqi government in the early 1990s. The Ghosts of the Iraq’s Marshes draws on these efforts, along with those of Nature Iraq, The Center for the Restoration of the Iraqi Marshes and Wetlands (CRIMW), and other national and international institutions.

The extent of the Marshes, 1973 and 2020 (Keith Holmes).