ROTHFIELD, L.,
The Rape of Mesopotamia. Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum.
University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London, 2009. XII,216p. Cloth wrps.
On April 10, 2003, as the World watched Saddam Hussein’s statue come crashing down in the heart of Baghdad, a mob of looters attacked the Iraq National Museum. Despite the nearby presence of an American tank unit, the pillaging went unchecked, and more than 15000 artifacts – some of the oldest evidence of human culture – disappeared into the shadowy worldwide market in illicit antiquities. In the years since that day, the losses have only mounted, with gangs digging up roughly half a million artifacts that had previously been unexcavated; the loss to our shared human heritage is incalculable. With The Rape of Mesopotamia, Lawrence Rothfield answers the complicated question of how this wholesale thievery was allowed to occur. This book is essential reading for all concerned with the future of our past.
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