This volume, a contribution to the emergent interdisciplinary field of Kurdish Studies, is an engagement with the politics, culture and history of the Kurds. Sections of the book treat the Kurds in medieval and modern history, including the contemporary 'Arab Spring', as well as their language, culture and geography and historiographical issues. Individual chapters focus on the rich cultural history of the Kurds, their language, literary history, their political struggle for self-determination and the participation of women in the resistance movement, and on the encounters of missionaries with Kurdish society as well as on the poetics and politics of the Kurds and Palestinians. The first section examines the contribution to Kurdish scholarship of Professor Amir Hassanpour to Kurdish scholarship, and this anthology is dedicated to his memory. Professor Hassanpour was a prominent Marxist scholar whose revolutionary commitment to preserve, enrich and expand Kurdish history, culture and struggle is inspirational.

Amir Harrak is Professor of Aramaic and Syriac at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto, Canada. He is the Chief Editor of the Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies (Journal of the CSSS) and the founder and the current president of the CSSS. He has a doctorate in Assyriology from the University of Toronto and two Licence degrees in Art History and Oriental Philology from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. His latest publications include The Chronicle of Zuqnin Parts I-II from the Creation to the Year 506/7 AD (2017); The Monastery of Mar Behnam à la période Atabeg - XIII^e S.: L'Art au Service de la Foi, Cahiers d'Études Syriaques 5 (2018); and The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian: Books XV-XXI (2019).

Blair Kuntz, Daniela Ansovini and Mahdi Ganjavi: A Revolutionary Commitment: Amir Hassanpour's Vision and Achievement in the Preservation of Kurdish History, Culture and Struggle - Abdel Razzaq Takriti: The Kurd and the Wind: The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian- Kurdish Affiliation - James A. Reilly: Kurds and the State in Modern Syria - Hashem M. Karami and David Romano: Sub- state Actors and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Case of Kurdish Forces in Iraq and Syria - Susan Benson- Sokmen: 'Fighting Side by Side with their Men': The Mount Ararat Uprising and the Erasures of (Some) Histories of Women's Resistance - Thomas M. Ricks: Kurdish Historiography and Missionary Eyewitness Accounts of Kurdish Society and Culture in the Hattari Mountains and in the Headwaters of the Euphrates and Zab Rivers - Michael L. Chyet: Vedikim vs. Divekim: More on Neo- Aramaic Influence on Kurdish - Fadi Ragheb: New Sources on the Memory of Saladin in Islamic History: An Explorative Essay into the Arabic Chronicles of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period- Amir Harrak: Aqra of Iraqi Kurdistan: Its Geography and History in Cuneiform, Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic Sources - Index.