The Kurds are the largest stateless nation in the world. They live under the jurisdiction of four sovereign states - Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria - which deny their national identity and suppress its political and cultural manifestations. The diversity that springs from this division has deprived the Kurds of ideological cohesion and political unity. Offering a wealth of new information on the history and politics of Kurdish nationalism, this book also looks at the wider issues of stateless nations, their identities, rights and obligations and the problems such nations pose for normative political theory which presupposes the framework of the modern nation state.