Author : Kian Tajbakhsh
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 22,84 MB
Release : 2022-07-21
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1009160915
An innovative study of the political decentralization of Iran and the failure of elected local government to democratize the authoritarian regime.
Author : Fakhreddin Azimi
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 511 pages
File Size : 18,54 MB
Release : 2010-09-30
Category : History
ISBN : 0674057066
The Constitutional Revolution of 1906 launched Iran as a pioneer in a broad-based movement to establish democratic rule in the non-Western world. In a book that provides essential context for understanding modern Iran, Fakhreddin Azimi traces a century of struggle for the establishment of representative government. The promise of constitutional rule was cut short in the 1920s with the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty. Reza Shah, whose despotic rule Azimi deftly captures, maintained the façade of a constitutional monarch but greeted any challenge with an iron fist: “I will eliminate you,” he routinely barked at his officials. In 1941, fearful of losing control of the oil-rich region, the Allies forced Reza Shah to abdicate but allowed Mohammad Reza to succeed his father. Though promising to abide by the constitution, the new Shah missed no opportunity to undermine it. The Anglo-American–backed coup of 1953, which ousted reformist premier Mohammed Mosaddeq, dealt a blow to the constitutionalists. The Shah’s repressive policies and subservience to the United States radicalized both secular and religious opponents, leading to the revolution of 1979. Azimi argues that we have fundamentally misunderstood this event by characterizing it as an “Islamic” revolution when it was in reality the expression of a long-repressed desire for popular sovereignty. This explains why the clerical rulers have failed to counter the growing public conviction that the Islamic Republic, too, is impervious to political reform—and why the democratic impulse that began with the Constitutional Revolution continues to be a potent and resilient force.
Author : Wilfried Buchta
Publisher :
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 22,76 MB
Release : 2000
Category : Iran
ISBN :
Author : Ray Takeyh
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 24,96 MB
Release : 2011-05-05
Category : History
ISBN : 0199754101
For over a quarter century, Iran has been one of America's chief nemeses. Ever since Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah in 1979, the relationship between the two nations has been antagonistic: revolutionary guards chanting against the Great Satan, Bush fulminating against the Axis of Evil, Iranian support for Hezbollah, and President Ahmadinejad blaming the U.S. for the world's ills. The unending war of words suggests an intractable divide between Iran and the West, one that may very well lead to a shooting war in the near future. But as Ray Takeyh shows in this accessible and authoritative history of Iran's relations with the world since the revolution, behind the famous personalities and extremist slogans is a nation that is far more pragmatic--and complex--than many in the West have been led to believe. Takeyh explodes many of our simplistic myths of Iran as an intransigently Islamist foe of the West. Tracing the course of Iranian policy since the 1979 revolution, Takeyh identifies four distinct periods: the revolutionary era of the 1980s, the tempered gradualism following the death of Khomeini and the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1989, the "reformist" period from 1997-2005 under President Khatami, and the shift toward confrontation and radicalism since the election of President Ahmadinejad in 2005. Takeyh shows that three powerful forces--Islamism, pragmatism, and great power pretensions--have competed in each of these periods, and that Iran's often paradoxical policies are in reality a series of compromises between the hardliners and the moderates, often with wild oscillations between pragmatism and ideological dogmatism. The U.S.'s task, Takeyh argues, is to find strategies that address Iran's objectionable behavior without demonizing this key player in an increasingly vital and volatile region. With its clear-sighted grasp of both nuance and historical sweep, Guardians of the Revolution will stand as the standard work on this controversial--and central--actor in world politics for years to come.
Author : David R. Collier
Publisher : Syracuse University Press
Page : 434 pages
File Size : 39,43 MB
Release : 2017-05-08
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0815653972
Collier presents a timely and fresh reexamination of one of the most important bilateral relationships of the last century. He delves deeply into the American desire to promote democracy in Iran from the 1940s through the early 1960s and examines the myriad factors that contributed to their success in exerting a powerful influence on Iranian politics. By creating a framework to understand the efficacy of external pressure, Collier explains how the United States later relinquished this control during the 1960s and 1970s. During this time, the shah emerged as a dominant and effective political operator who took advantage of waning American influence to assert his authority. Collier reveals how this shifting power dynamic transformed the former client-patron relationship into one approaching equality.
Author :
Publisher : IFES
Page : 113 pages
File Size : 24,10 MB
Release :
Category :
ISBN : 1931459592
Author : Hamideh Sedghi
Publisher :
Page : 359 pages
File Size : 46,36 MB
Release : 2014-05-14
Category : SOCIAL SCIENCE
ISBN : 9780511296574
Why were urban women veiled in the early 1900s, unveiled from 1936 to 1979, and reveiled after the 1979 revolution? This question forms the basis of Hamideh Sedghi's original and unprecedented contribution to politics and Middle Eastern studies. Using primary and secondary sources, Sedghi offers new knowledge on women's agency in relation to state power. In this rigorous analysis she places contention over women at the centre of the political struggle between secular and religious forces and demonstrates that control over women's identities, sexuality, and labor has been central to the consolidation of state power. Sedghi links politics and culture with economics to present an integrated analysis of the private and public lives of different classes of women and their modes of resistance to state power.
Author : Ray Takeyh
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 15,56 MB
Release : 2006-10-03
Category : History
ISBN : 0805079769
Publisher description
Author : Ray Takeyh
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 32,63 MB
Release : 2021-01-26
Category : History
ISBN : 030021779X
The surprising story of Iran's transformation from America's ally in the Middle East into one of its staunchest adversaries "An original interpretation that puts Iranian actors where they belong: at center stage."--Michael Doran, Wall Street Journal "For the clearest view of Iran for the last 100 years, this book is it."--Marvin Zonis, author of Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah Offering a new view of one of America's most important, infamously strained, and widely misunderstood relationships of the postwar era, this book tells the history of America and Iran from the time the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was placed on the throne in 1941 to the 1979 revolution that brought the present Islamist government to power. This revolution was not, as many believe, the popular overthrow of a powerful and ruthless puppet of the United States; rather, it followed decades of corrosion of Iran's political establishment by an autocratic ruler who demanded fealty but lacked the personal strength to make hard decisions and, ultimately, lost the support of every sector of Iranian society. Esteemed Middle East scholar Ray Takeyh provides new interpretations of many key events--including the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini--significantly revising our understanding of America and Iran's complex and difficult history.
Author : Azar Nafisi
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 29,69 MB
Release : 2014-10-21
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0698170334
A New York Times bestseller The author of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran returns with the next chapter of her life in books—a passionate and deeply moving hymn to America Ten years ago, Azar Nafisi electrified readers with her multimillion-copy bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, which told the story of how, against the backdrop of morality squads and executions, she taught The Great Gatsby and other classics of English and American literature to her eager students in Iran. In this electrifying follow-up, she argues that fiction is just as threatened—and just as invaluable—in America today. Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination. Nafisi invites committed readers everywhere to join her as citizens of what she calls the Republic of Imagination, a country with no borders and few restrictions, where the only passport to entry is a free mind and a willingness to dream.
