Alissa Walter presents 'Contested City'

Third Place Books is pleased to welcome Alissa Walter to our Lake Forest Park store for a presentation of her new book, . Charting the social, economic, and political transformations of Iraq's capital city, Walter examines how national policies translated into action at the local, everyday level. This event is free and open to the public.

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This event is free to attend. RSVP is recommended in advance.

Contested City offers a history of state-society relations in Baghdad, exploring how city residents managed through periods of economic growth, sanctions, and war, from the oil boom of the 1950s through the withdrawal of US troops in 2011. Interactions between citizens and their rulers shaped the social fabric and political realities of the city. Notably, low-ranking Ba'th party officials functioned as crucial intermediaries, deciding how regime policies would be applied. Charting the social, economic, and political transformations of Iraq's capital city, Alissa Walter examines how national policies translated into action at the local, everyday level.

With this book, Walter reveals how authoritarian governance worked in practice. She follows shifts in mid-century housing and urban development, the impact of the Iran–Iraq and Gulf Wars on city life, and the manipulation of food rations and growth of black markets. Reading citizen petitions to the government, Walter illuminates citizens' self-advocacy and the important role of low-ranking party officials and state bureaucrats embedded within neighborhoods. The US occupation and ensuing sectarian fighting upended Baghdad's neighborhoods through violent displacement and the collapse of basic state services. This power vacuum paved the way for new power brokers, including militias and neighborhood councils, to compete for influence on the local level.

Alissa Walter is an Associate Professor of History at Seattle Pacific University. She earned her MA in Arab Studies and her PhD in Middle Eastern History from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. She traveled frequently to Iraq for her research, and has spent significant time in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. Walter regularly volunteers as an expert witness for Iraqi asylum seekers in Washington. Walter has deep roots in the Pacific Northwest: her husband was born and raised in the area, and they are now raising their two kids to experience all the natural beauty that the Northwest offers. Walter is a resident of Shoreline, WA.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

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