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Read the author's Op Ed on Boston Globe

It's an achievement of Blood and Belief that despite the bloodletting, Marcus still generates empathy—not for the murderous Ocalan, but for the desperate Kurds who joined the PKK revolution feeling they had nowhere else to turn."
—The Washington Post Book World

"Blood and Belief gives meaning and context to the grinding guerrilla war that claimed tens of thousands of lives"
—Boston Globe

Blood and Belief offers unusual insight into the rebels' shadowy universe and, by extension, into Turkey's festering Kurdish problem. . . . [A] scholarly, gripping account.
—The Economist

"Marcus dispassionate recounting of events is impressive in its factual, documented style and avoidance of partisan shrillness. While never condoning any of the PKKs excesses, she points out its one achievement: to haveput the Kurdish problem on the agenda in Turkey and in front of the world. "
—Bookforum

“This important, timely, and readable book discusses the creation, consolidation and vicissitudes of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, the Kurdish acronym by which it is popularly known. . . . Highly recommended.”
—Choice

“Marcus delivers an easy to follow, well-written, well-researched and fascinating narrative. While many academic and journalistic treatments of the PKK get lost on the movements often inconsistent rhetoric, opaque Marxist-Leninist jargon, and contradictory public statements, Blood and Belief maintains its focus on the personalities and issues crucial to really understanding the big picture of the PKK. . . . invaluable to researchers, policy makers, and non-specialists simply interested in learning about this topic.”
—Middle East Journal

“As a result of Marcuss detailed historical analysis and authoritative sources, Blood and Belief stands alone as an authoritative source of PKK history from the mouths of those who created it.”
—Richard Saccone, Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa

Marcus has unequalled knowledge of the PKK and her book will be essential reading for all who are interested in the topic. Blood and Belief comes out at an important moment when fate of the Kurds is becoming more and more important to the future of the Middle East.
—Patrick Cockburn, author of The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq

Aliza Marcus has written the kind of book that only a journalist who has covered conflict on the ground could write. She has brought her superb eye for detail and her deep knowledge of history of the region to the task of understanding the violent and painful journey of the Kurds. Blood and Belief is necessary reading for anyone who seeks to understand all of the moving parts of the Middle East today.
—Charles M. Sennott, author of The Body and the Blood: The Middle East's Vanishing Christians and the Possibility for Peace

Marcus carefully chronicles the scarcely believable saga of long repressed, but resurgent Kurdish identity in Turkey and the ongoing quarter century revolt of the PKK inspired by Abdullah Ocalan, one of the Third World's more paranoid contemporary nationalist fountainheads. This is the astounding tale of a ruthless hard scrabble beneficiary of the Turkish Republic's liberal education system who mounted the twentieth century's longest challenge to Ankara's authority and sent tens of thousands of Kurds — and Turks — to their deaths from the safety of a foreign sanctuary. Marcus dissects fatal Kurdish and Turkish stubbornness which helped perpetuate this sputtering revolt despite Ocalan's manifest errors, his craven repudiation of the PKK objectives once in Turkish captivity and mass desertions by true believers disillusioned by his transparent efforts to save his neck.
—Jonathan Randal, author of Osama: The Making of a Terrorist

This is a very good, original work that will add greatly to our understanding of the Kurdish national movement and Kurdish politics. It is an important contribution to an understanding of contemporary Kurdish history and of the Kurdish question in general. I know of no book like it.
—Keith Hitchins, editor, The Journal of Kurdish Studies

The Kurds, who number some 28 million people in the Middle East, have no country they can call their own. Long ignored by the West, Kurds are now highly visible actors on the world's political stage. More than half live in Turkey, where the Kurdish struggle has gained new strength and attention since the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq.

Essential to understanding modern-day Kurds—and their continuing demands for an independent state—is understanding the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party. A guerilla force that was founded in 1978 by a small group of ex-Turkish university students, the PKK radicalized the Kurdish national movement in Turkey, becoming a tightly organized, well-armed fighting force of some 15,000, with a 50,000-member civilian militia in Turkey and tens of thousands of active backers in Europe. Under the leadership of Abdullah Ocalan, the war the PKK waged in Turkey through 1999 left nearly 40,000 people dead and drew in the neighboring states of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, all of whom sought to use the PKK for their own purposes. Since 2004, emboldened by the Iraqi Kurds, who now have established an autonomous Kurdish state in the northernmost reaches of Iraq, the PKK has again turned to violence to meet its objectives.

Blood and Belief combines reportage and scholarship to give the first in-depth account of the PKK. Aliza Marcus, one of the first Western reporters to meet with PKK rebels, wrote about their war for many years for a variety of prominent publications before being put on trial in Turkey for her reporting. Based on her interviews with PKK rebels and their supporters and opponents throughout the world--including the Palestinians who trained them, the intelligence services that tracked them, and the dissidents who tried to break them up—Marcus provides an in-depth account of this influential radical group.

Aliza Marcus is formerly an international correspondent for The Boston Globe and lives in Washington, D.C. She covered the PKK for more than eight years, first as a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor and later as a staff writer for Reuters, receiving a National Press Club Award for her reporting. She is also a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation grant for her work.