Due to the conflict and violence that have swept across the country and the wider region in the wake of the Islamic State (IS) group’s formation, Iraq’s Kurds having even become central to understanding the politics of the region. With new battles being waged over the boundaries of Kurdish territories and oil fields in the region, never before has it been so important to examine the situation of the Kurds in Iraq. In this book, Mahir A. Aziz asks the pertinent questions, who are the Kurds today? What is their relationship to the Iraqi state? How do they perceive themselves and their prospective political future? And in what way are they crucial for the stability of the Iraqi state? Through extensive field research, he constructs an intimate portrait of the Kurds of Iraq, which will provide an important insight for students and researchers of the Middle East and for those interested in the vital issues of nationalism and ethnic identity in the modern nation state, and the impact these issues have on the stability and future of Iraq itself.