Our suggested reading today is Ungovernable Life. Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq by Omar Dewachi.
As both an anthropologist and an Iraqi medical doctor, Dewachi skilfully links the trajectory of Iraqi’s medicine and health infrastructure to processes of state formation under conditions of war and invasion.
The book is a major contribution in understanding how imperial forms of governance are contested and reproduced through healthcare. An accessible history of Iraqi medicine that informs broader debates on governance and global health.