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Kirkuk is Iraq's most multilingual city, for millennia home to a diverse population. It was also where, in 1927, a foreign company first struck oil in Iraq. Over the following decades, Kirkuk became the heart of Iraq's booming petroleum industry. City of Black Gold tells a story of oil, urbanization, and colonialism in Kirkuk—and how these factors shaped the identities of Kirkuk's citizens, forming the foundation of an ethnic conflict. Arbella Bet-Shlimon reconstructs the twentieth-century history of Kirkuk to question the assumptions about the past underpinning today's ethnic divisions. In the early 1920s, when the Iraqi state was formed under British administration, group identities in Kirkuk were fluid. But as the oil industry fostered colonial power and Baghdad's influence over Kirkuk, intercommunal violence and competing claims to the city's history took hold. The ethnicities of Kurds, Turkmens, and Arabs in Kirkuk were formed throughout a century of urban development, interactions between communities, and political mobilization. Ultimately, this book shows how contentious politics in disputed areas are not primordial traits of those regions, but are a modern phenomenon tightly bound to the society and economics of urban life.

Ethnicity --- Ethnic identity --- Group identity --- Cultural fusion --- Multiculturalism --- Cultural pluralism --- Political aspects --- History --- Iraq. --- Kirkuk. --- colonialism. --- development. --- disputed cities. --- ethnic conflict. --- ethnicity. --- oil. --- petroleum. --- urbanization. --- Karkūk (Iraq) --- Ethnic relations --- Politics and government --- Karkh Slukh (Iraq) --- Kerkouk (Iraq) --- Kerkuk (Iraq) --- Kirkūk (Iraq)

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Despite dramatic improvements in the security environment in most parts of Iraq, still unresolved are many core political issues, foremost of which is the conflict over the city and region of Kirkuk. With immense oil reserves and a diverse population of Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmens, Kirkuk in recent history has been scarred by interethnic violence and state-sponsored ethnic cleansing. Throughout the twentieth century, successive Arab Iraqi governments engaged in a brutal campaign to increase Kirkuk's Arab population at the expense of Kurds and Turkmens. Following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a newly empowered Kurdish leadership has sought to reverse the effects of the Arabization campaign and to hold a referendum on incorporating Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region. The Kurds' efforts are, however, strongly opposed by Kirkuk's Turkmens, Arabs, and also most states in the region.In Crisis in Kirkuk, Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield offer a dispassionate analysis of one of Iraq's most pressing and unresolved problems. Drawing on extensive research and fieldwork, the authors investigate the claims to ownership made by each of Kirkuk's competing communities. They consider the constitutional mechanisms put in place to address the issue and the problems that have plagued their implementation. The book concludes with an assessment of the measures needed to resolve the crisis in Kirkuk, stressing that finding a compromise acceptable to all sides is vital to the future stability of Iraq.

Iraq War, 2003-2011 --- Arabs --- Kurds --- Turkmen --- Compromise formation --- Ethnic conflict --- Anglo-American Invasion of Iraq, 2003-2011 --- Dawn, Operation New, 2010-2011 --- Gulf War II, 2003-2011 --- Iraqi Freedom, Operation, 2003-2010 --- New Dawn, Operation, 2010-2011 --- Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003-2010 --- Operation New Dawn, 2010-2011 --- Operation Telic, 2003-2011 --- Persian Gulf War, 2003-2011 --- Telic, Operation, 2003-2011 --- War on Terrorism, 2001-2009 --- Akhal Tekke-Turkomans --- Salor-Turkomans --- Sarik-Turkomans --- Tekke-Turkomans --- Turcomans --- Turkmens --- Turkomans --- Ethnology --- Turkic peoples --- Conflict, Ethnic --- Ethnic violence --- Inter-ethnic conflict --- Interethnic conflict --- Ethnic relations --- Social conflict --- Repression (Psychology) --- Iranians --- Semites --- Political aspects --- Social aspects --- Social conditions --- History --- Karkūk (Iraq) --- Karkh Slukh (Iraq) --- Kerkouk (Iraq) --- Kerkuk (Iraq) --- Kirkūk (Iraq) --- History. --- Politics and government --- Political aspects. --- African Studies. --- Asian Studies. --- Middle Eastern Studies. --- Political Science. --- Public Policy.