The modern history of Iraq is a history of the ways in which the people who found themselves living in the new Iraqi state were drawn into its orbit. The creation of a state centred on Baghdad in 1920–1, with its frontiers, its bureaucracy and its fiscal system, established a new framework for politics, embodying distinctive ideas about government. Controlled first by British and then by Iraqi officials, the state made new demands upon its inhabitants, causing people to rethink existing political identities, values and interests. Sometimes these were adapted to serve the state and its rulers; sometimes they were marginalised or suppressed. The history of the state, therefore, is in part a history of the strategies of co-operation, subversion and resistance adopted by various Iraqis trying to come to terms with the force the state represented. It has also been a history of the ways the state transformed those who tried to use it. These different forms of engagement over the years shaped the politics of Iraq and contributed to the composite narrative of Iraq's modern history.

Throughout this process, two important features emerge. The first is the power of the state to act as a centre of gravity, gradually drawing people into a field of distinctively Iraqi politics. This is connected to the second feature – the narratives used by Iraqis to understand and to justify their political engagement over time.