In The Kurdish Nationalist Movement in the 1990s leading scholars on the history and plight of the Kurds systematically lay out the case that the Kurdish Question looms as one of the largest threats to peace and stability in the Middle East for the coming decades. With the majority of Kurds living within its borders, no country faces this threat more squarely than Turkey, whose concept of a unified, cohesive nationhood —in which the existence of ethnic minorities is not acknowledged— makes this potential powderkeg more difficult to manage than elsewhere.
Separate sections examine the development of the movement in the 1980s and explore its influence on Turkey's foreign, domestic, and human rights policies, in the end questioning the viability of the Turkish state as presently constituted.
Robert Olson, professor of Middle East and Islamic history at the University of Kentucky, is the author of several books, including The Ba'ath in Syria, 1947-1982, and The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism, 1880-1925.
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