Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
Watching Babylon : The War in Iraq and Global Visual Culture - Nicholas Mirzoeff

Watching Babylon

The War in Iraq and Global Visual Culture

By: Nicholas Mirzoeff

Hardcover | 4 November 2004 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover


RRP $326.00

$280.99

14%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $70.25 with

 or 

Ships in 3 to 5 business days

Groundbreaking and compelling, Watching Babylon examines the experience of watching the war against Iraq on television, on the internet, in the cinema and in print media.

Mirzoeff shows how the endless stream of images flowing from the Gulf has necessitated a new form of visual thinking, one which recognises that the war has turned images themselves into weapons. Drawing connections between the history and legend of ancient Babylon, the metaphorical Babylon of Western modernity, and everyday life in the modern suburb of Babylon, New York, Mirzoeff explores ancient concerns which have found new resonance in the present day.

In the tradition of Walter Benjamin, Watching Babylon illuminates the Western experience of the Iraqi war and makes us re-examine the very way we look at images of conflict.

Industry Reviews

'A rich and helpful look at our dark times. Mirzoeff explains how watching Babylon-Iraq is simultaneously constructing and destroying the world we inhabit' - Chris Hables Gray

'A tour de force of cultural criticism. Mirzoeff lays bare the complex and inexorable interconnections between the US-UK axis of power and Iraq - interconnections that strategically belie the brute logic of 'difference' currently determining the state of world affairs'


"A tour de force by perhaps the most inventive--certainly the most wide-ranging-- practitioner of visual culture analysis in the world today. Focusing on the deadly vacuity of the Iraq Invasion, Mirzoeff describes the global media war with an unusually subtle attentiveness to its visual dimensions. More importantly, he situates his response inside a broader picturing of how globalizing capital and resurgent nation states are creating what he calls 'an empire of camps." - Terry Smith, University of Pittsburgh

More in Middle Eastern History

Men in the Sun : And Other Palestinian Stories - Keira Lykourentzos

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict - Ilan Pappe
Cactus Pear For My Beloved : Shortlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize - Samah Sabawi
Raven Mother : War, family and inheritance: a memoir - Jane Messer
Ten Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
Persepolis : The Story of an Iranian Childhood - Marjane Satrapi

RRP $39.99

$26.75

33%
OFF
Israel : A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth - Noa Tishby
Palestine : A Four Thousand Year History - Nur  Masalha