The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> two reviews of Dr. Joseph's book

Posted by pancho (Guest) - Friday, July 27 2007, 18:27:46 (CEST)
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Posted By: pancho
Date: Friday, 27 July 2007, at 12:24 p.m.

...everyone who lies to the people should be exposed...that inculdes not only Bush, Cheney etc. but Maggie as well. She wrote that a college was named for Dr Joseph, when I have said over and over that it was a building....even she mentions the student who paid for it...he paid for a building, which is expensive enough...but a whole COLLEGE? Next she said that "Brill Publications" was one of these print-for-hire scams like Aprim and Rosie used...and she will too when she finishes her extolling herself...I posted a description of Brill which shows that it is a legitimate publisher of serious books...not pop-culture.

Next she said NO ONE reviewed Dr Joseph's book except Edn Naby, and who is SHE? She said Dr Joseph was AFRAID to have a REAL reviewer etc etc.

Well, here below are two reviews...one of them from only three years ago...for a book that is, according to Maggie "old warmed-over news". One reviewer should be familiar to us...he is none other than the noted Dr. David Perley, one of US, known as a "nationalist". Of course Maggie is lying, desperate to tear down a man ACKNOWLEDGED by others as a leading expert in his field...so she can place HERSELF on her own throne.

Two reviews of John Joseph's THE NESTORIANS (1961), and of its revised edition, THE MODERN ASSYRIANS (2000).:

1. From a review of THE NESTORIANS AND THEIR MUSLIM NEIGHBORS (Princeton University Press, 1961).by David Perley, one of the most respected Assyrian nationalists of his day. In a series of issues of THE ASSYRIAN STAR in the early 1960s, the reviewer and author exchanged views that reflect a balance and civility that seems to be non-existent among us some forty years later.:

"...Beyond this erroneous choice [of names], there is much in [Joseph's] thesis to command solemn respect and quicken insight. It is a work of erudition. I cannot withhold my personal admiration.

His subtitle is "A Study of Western Influence on Their Relations." He shows how these people have suffered, periodically (because of religious suspicion), by reason of the chronic wars between the Sassanian Persia and the Roman Empire at the time the latter came to be officially Christian, with the resulting severance of their ties with their brethren within the latter Empire; how they were fragmented by the numerous Western Missionaries' clash £or supremacy (but not without some incidental benefits). Dr. Joseph deals at some length with the relations between the Assyrians and the Mongols, the Kurds and the Ottomans. He further shows, and very successfully, how the Assyrians were affected by Western political currents and chicanery that employed the Assyrians in the two World Wars for their own ends, under the guise of friendly protection, which left them in a state of exile.

Chapter VIII, entitled "The Assyrians as a Political Issue" in the 20th century, offers the sum-total of the Assyrian Odessey, in form of literary beauty. It is brilliant, scholarly, betraying a smoldering genius for creative understanding. This Chapter alone should induce every Assyrian, man and woman, to possess the book, read it, and re-read it, for some years to come. The appeal of Rev. Paul's book [also reviewed] may be provincial. but the appeal of Prof. Joseph's book is universal."

P.S. Mr. Perley was the most blunt critic of my opening chapter and the most lyrical in his praise of the rest of the book-- an exaggeration on both scores.. When I wrote him that one of our Assyrian students at the American University of Beirut needed financial help, he sent me a $1000 check to forward to him. I never had the pleasure of meeting David Perley.

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2. From JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, published by the University of Chicago press, 63 (April 2004), 122-123:, by Professor Joel :Thomas Walker.

"The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: Encounters with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. By JOHN JOSEPH. Studies in Christian Mission, voL 26. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2000. Pp. xii + 290. $94.

Princeton University Press published the first edition of this book in 1961 under the title The Nestorians and Their Muslim Neighbors: A Study of Western Influence on Their Relations (expanded from, a 1956 Princeton University dissertation supervised by Philip K. Hitti). The product of extensive research in Syriac, Arabic, and European sources, The Nestorians offered a pioneering study in the political and social history of the "Nestorian" or East-Syrian Church. This new edition, much expanded and revised, provides a lucid, reliable, and engaging history of the Church of the East from its origins until the late twentieth century. It is a landmark book that deserves to be widely read, particularly by historians of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Middle East.

Joseph's study opens (pp. 1-32) with a judicious account of the diverse names--Nestorian, Chaldean, Syrian, Aramean, and Assyrian--assigned to or claimed by the Christian communities of northern Iraq and northwestern Iran. Although these names have been the topic of "much acrimonious debate," Joseph skillfully delineates the historical origins and resonance of each name. He is particularly forthright and convincing on the alleged ancient Assyrian ancestry of the region's Christian population. He traces how interaction with Anglo-American missionaries and archaeologists during the late nineteenth century helped foster the conceptual link between the Nestorians and the ancient Assyrians. He also documents the critical role of the American diaspora community in augmenting the popularity of the Assyrian nomenclature between the two world wars.

Joseph's account of the early and medieval history of the church (pp. 33-63) presents a condensed, well-integrated narrative grounded in the best available secondary literature. More original and important are the chapters exploring the Anglo-American missionary activity in the Hakkari districts of Kurdistan (pp. 64-85) and Azerbaijan (pp. 86-106), for which Joseph draws upon unpublished American missionary archives. His even-handed treatment of the complex political maneuvers between Ottoman authorities, Russian agents, and local Kurdish tribal leaders provides the backdrop for the gradually intensifying pattern of "disorder, incompetence, murder, and plunder" (p. 124) that afflicted the region in the decades leading up to the First World War.

Between the Russian occupation of Azerbaijan in 1910 and the Mosul Commission of 1925, ongoing violence, famine, and dislocation further diminished the Assyrian community; their nationalist aspirations, encouraged by the British in the First World War, proved illusory in the new political realities of the post-Ottoman Middle East. Joseph's account reveals how precarious the Assyrians' position has always been within the nation state of Iraq, from its inception in 1932 down to the Gulf War of 1991. The final chapter describes the shifting strategies of Christian missionary outreach in the twentieth century and the growth of the Assyrian diaspora community in America. It also chronicles the awful tale of scandal, schism, and even assassination that has plagued the patriarchate of the Church over the past three decades.

The Modern Assyrians, which appears in Brill's series Studies in Christian Mission, includes two maps, a 24-page bibliography, and a full index.. One can only hope that the hefty price of the book does not prevent it from reaching the wide readership that it deserves."

JOEL THOMAS WALKER
University of Washington, Seattle

..let me guess....these are PAID ENEMIES TO DESTROY ASSYRIA...right?

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