In the late 1970s, Saddam Hussein's army carried out a genocidal campaign against Iraq's Kurds, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions.

Today, in the northern region of the country known as Iraqi Kurdistan, a federally-recognized parliamentary democracy has since taken hold. The violence has stopped, and the Kurdish people have been able to set roots down again in secure, stable lives.

In 2005, photojournalist Ed Kashi spent seven weeks in the region on assignment for National Geographic making thousands of photographs of daily life across many segments of the population. Edited together in a rapid, filmic succession, the images create a collage-like portrait of a peaceful region that is full of promise, even as it sits so near an ongoing war.