Kanan Makiya papers, 1943-2023, undated

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Summary

Creators:
Makiya, Kanan
Abstract:
Correspondence, writings, notes, interview transcripts, conference papers, government publications, printed matter, and audiovisual materials relating to the history of the Middle East, political conditions in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and the Iraqi opposition to it.
Extent:
129 manuscript boxes, 2 oversize boxes, 3 sound cassettes, 1 videocassette, digital media (54.5 Linear Feet)
Language:
In Arabic and English
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Kanan Makiya papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Background

Scope and content:

The papers consist of correspondence, writings, notes, interview transcripts, conference papers, serial issues, pamphlets, leaflets, government publications, other printed matter, and audiovisual materials, relating to the history of the Middle East, political conditions in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, and the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, including the Iraqi opposition to it.

Biographical / historical:

Born in Baghdad, Kanan Makiya left Iraq to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later returned to join Makiya Associates to design and build projects in the Middle East. In 1981, he left the architecture field and began to write a book about Iraq. Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (1989) became a best-seller after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Makiya's second book, The Monument (1991) is an essay on the aesthetics of power and kitsch. Both Republic of Fear and The Monument were written under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil. His next book, Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World (1993), was published under Makiya's own name.

In 2000 Makiya published The Rock: A Tale of Seventh-Century Jerusalem, a work of historical fiction that tells the story of the building of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Along with these books, Makiya has written for The Independent, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement and The Times. Makiya has also published on the architecture of Mohamed Makiya, Post-Islamic Classicism: An Essay on the Architecture of Mohamed Makiya.

Makiya has been profiled in many books and publications including The New Yorker (January 6, 1992) and The New York Times Magazine (October 7, 2007). He has collaborated on several films for television, the most known of which exposed for the first time the 1988 campaign of genocide in northern Iraq known as the Anfal. The film, originally aired in January 1992 on the BBC, was aired by Frontline in the U.S. under the title "Saddam's Killing Fields," and received the Edward R. Morrow Award For Best Television Documentary on Foreign Affairs for 1992. Makiya's books are available in many languages, including Arabic, French, Turkish and Spanish.

In 2003 Makiya founded the Iraq Memory Foundation, a NGO based in Baghdad and the US dedicated to issues of remembrance, violence, and identity formation. The Iraq Memory Foundation has collected and digitized nearly 10 million pages of Ba'th era documents and has been supported by both the Iraqi and US governments as well as many foundations. Makiya also continues to write, working on a historical fiction book set in Iraq between 2003 and 2006, titled The Rope.

Source: Brandeis University, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Kanan Makiya, faculty, http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/nejs/faculty/makiya.html, accessed 27 May 2015.

Acquisition information:
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library Archives in 2010.
Processing information:

The papers have been inventoried by Makiya and Hoover Institution Library and Archives staff. Where information was only recorded in relation to a range of multiple boxes, those boxes have been grouped under their overarching description and have been recorded as "Material not yet described."

Physical location:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Users must sign use agreement. Boxes 59 and 115 may not be used without permission of the Archivist. The remainder of the collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.

Terms of access:

Users must sign use agreement - no photography, scanning, downloading, or duplication in any manner is permitted until 2042 October 1; notes may be made. For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Kanan Makiya papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Location of this collection:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6003, US
Contact:
(650) 723-3563
hooverarchives@stanford.edu
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