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Kreyenbroek, Philip G. and Stefan Speri, eds., The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview. London: Routledge, 1992. xii+250 pp., bibliography, index. ISBN 0-415-07265-4.
Bulloch, John and Harvey Morris, No Friends But the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds. London: Viking, 1992. xii+242 pp., map, photographs, index. ISBN 0-19-508075-0.
Imset, Ismet G., The PKK: A Report on Separatist Violence in Turkey, 1973-1992. Ankara: Turkish Daily News Publications, 1992. 450 pp., appendices, photos. Paper $100. No ISBN.
Chaliand, Gerard, The Kurdish Tragedy, tns. Philip Black. London: Zed Books, 1994. Maps, appendices, bibliography, index. ISBN 1-85649-100-5 paper, 1-85649-099-8 cloth.
The year 1992 will be remembered by all students of Kurdish topics as the one which marked the shattering of the spell that kept Western publications on the Kurds sparse and often either too academic or too shallow. It was also the year in which for a few months "Kurd" became a household word to many ordinary Americans and other Westerners. The small circle of the Kurdologists was swamped by the press and academic departments to supply answers to everything that needed to be known about the Kurds - and quickly. Earlier, one had all the time to polish and publish a work on the Kurds. In the West, three or four books on the Kurds per decade was considered bountiful. By early 1991 everybody was scrambling to get out any and all they could. For once the publishers were after the Kurdologist, not the reverse as customary.
The range of new publications that appeared in 1992 was phenomenal. Many old works were also spruced up (barely), renamed (to include the selling word "Kurd") and eagerly printed by publishers in the US and Europe. The amazing thing was that the interest in Kurds - as measured by the number of publications - also skyrocketed in the Middle East itself. There, despite their ubiquitous presence, Kurds never before had caused enough public attention to prod the local academics and authors to publish exclusively on them. This all changed courtesy of CNN and other Western international news agencies and television broadcasters which brought with much drama the Kurdish plight into most peoples living rooms - West and East.
These four books, all progenies of 1992, are a good example of the...