Publisher's Synopsis
The Iran-Iraq War was one of the bloodiest and longest conventional conflicts of the twentieth century – and one that, accidentally, created the current nightmare of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. There have been many books on the conflict, but Helion’s Iran–Iraq War mini-series was the first detailed military history using materials from both sides, as well as materials obtained from US intelligence circles and British Governmental archives. It provided a unique insight into a war which began through miscalculation and rapidly escalated into the longest conventional conflict in the post-Second World War era. Combining the four @War volumes previously published on this topic, The Iran-Iraq War: The Greatest Land War of the Late Twentieth Century details the origins of the conflict and how Saddam Hussein decided to invade; how the hamstrung Iraqi Army was able to conquer only a narrow strip of territory of Iran’s southern province of Khuzestan; the constantly growing Iranian counteroffensives that first recovered Khuzestan before invading Iraq and nearly breaking the back of its armed forces; the warfare between Iran and Iraq on the Central and Northern Fronts, and final Iraqi victories that forced Iran into accepting a UN-mediated cease-fire. This special edition features an extensive quantity of new material that does not appear in the individual volumes, including detailed appendices providing the organisational structure of the protagonists’ armies and their equipment holdings. It is lavishly illustrated with colour photographs as well as colour artworks of the vehicles, aircraft and soldiers involved, a number of which have been specially commissioned for this edition. The Iran-Iraq War: The Greatest Land War of the late Twentieth Century is the most detailed military history of this conflict available, and a unique, single-point source of reference on this topic.
