A collection of rare Iraqi and Kurdish school textbooks – some believed to be the last copies in existence – has been donated to the Georg Eckert Institute in Germany, one of the world’s leading centres for textbook research.
The books were donated from a private collection held by Dr Sherko Kirmanj. Due to the importance of preserving the materials, the Education, Peace and Politics project assisted Dr Sherko’s trip to the institute, to formally hand the books over. The materials span several decades, including textbooks from the Hashemite monarchy, the Baathist regime, and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) after 2005.
“The books have arrived and are now safely archived, said Dr Sherko Kirmanj, a researcher who spent years collecting the materials. “They are preserved instead of gathering dust on my bookshelf in Australia.”
Dr Sherko began assembling the collection during his doctoral studies, recognising that school textbooks offered a largely untapped source for analysing how education systems in Iraq and the Kurdish region have been used in nation-building, or in some cases, contributed to national fragmentation.
“Some of these books are the last copies in existence,” he said. “The information in these books is highly valuable. I want to make sure these books are archived for future researchers. The collection is valuable to education, sociologist, political scientist researchers and historians alike – this is true of books used in the Iraq as well as in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”
The textbooks serve as historical snapshots of Iraq’s turbulent political past. Some date back to the 1950s under King Faisal II, while others reflect the ideological control of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime leading up to the 2003 US-led invasion. More recent materials come from the KRG, which since 2005 has produced its own curricula promoting a Kurdish perspective. Dr Sherko’s collection includes at least two full sets of KRG-issued textbooks.
He has published widely on how education content in Iraq and the Kurdistan region reflects competing visions of identity, power, and belonging—highlighting who writes the textbooks, what narratives they promote, and which voices are left out.
The Georg Eckert Institute, based in Braunschweig, houses the world’s largest collection of school textbooks and has been active in textbook research for over 70 years. It includes approximately 180,000 printed and online volumes from over 175 countries Its archive includes the Mercurius Cosmographicus, a geography book from 1648 thought to be the oldest textbook in the world. The institute’s mission is to support peace, tolerance, and democratic values through the study of educational materials.
By transferring the books into this archive, Dr Sherko hopes future generations of scholars will gain access to a resource that has played a foundational role in his own academic work.
