1st Edition

City and Identity in Modern Iraq Baghdad and Nation Building

By Mustafa Obaid Copyright 2026
268 Pages 13 Color & 61 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

268 Pages 13 Color & 61 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

City and Identity in Modern Iraq examines the role of Baghdad in the process of shaping collective identity and analyzes how different visions of citizenship have changed the face of the city. Since the establishment of the modern state in 1921, the capital city was central to questions of belonging and the country’s social stability. Each phase of the city’s history offers insights into... Read more

Introduction   

1. Cities' Role in Nation and Identity Building         

1.1 Cities as Centers of Social Changes

1.2 Understanding Identity

1.3 Cultural Capacity

1.4 The Dialectics of City and Identity in Iraq

2. Baghdad's Cultural Capacity: One Century of Nation Building

2.1 The Initiation (1920-1963): The Birth of Iraq’s Modern Capital

2.2 The Disintegration (1963-2003): The Decline of Cities

2.3 The Division (After 2003): Polarized Baghdad

3. The Cultural Infrastructure: Baghdad’s Spaces of Identity and Nation Building

3.1 The Cultural Corridor: Iraq’s Heart of Social Integrity

3.2 The Tahrir Hub and its Influential Uprising

3.3 Thematic Networks

Conclusions and Future Perspectives

Biography

Mustafa Obaid earned his doctorate at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, on the role of cities in the development of ethnic and cultural identities in 2024. Since September of the same year, he has been teaching and researching at the department of urban planning at the BTU-Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany.