In this book, a leading authority on Iranian political parties offers the first history of the Mojahedin, a little-known radical group that was instrumental in bringing the Ayatollah Khomeini to power but that now constitutes the main opposition to his Islamic Republic. Drawing on all available sources-including interviews with past and present members of the Mojahedin-Ervand Abrahamian traces their organization from the 1960s to the present. " This] book is important and useful not only because it is the first in English on its subject, but also because . . . it is objective. . . . I]ts...
In this book, a leading authority on Iranian political parties offers the first history of the Mojahedin, a little-known radical group that was instru...
Taken together the essays in this work not only provide new research essential to the study of Islamic societies and Muslim peoples, but also set a new standard for the concrete study of local situations and illuminate the forces shaping the history of modern Muslim societies. This collection is unique in its sophisticated interpretation of the social protest and political resistance movements in Muslim countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributors take two principal approaches to the study of their subject. Utilizing "new cultural history," they explore how...
Taken together the essays in this work not only provide new research essential to the study of Islamic societies and Muslim peoples, but also set a ne...
"Fanatic," "dogmatic," "fundamentalist"--these are the words most often used in the West to describe the Ayatollah Khomeini. The essays in this book challenge that view, arguing that Khomeini and his Islamic movement should be seen as a form of Third World political populism--a radical but pragmatic middle-class movement that strives to enter, rather than reject, the modern age. Ervand Abrahamian, while critical of Khomeini, asks us to look directly at the Ayatollah's own works and to understand what they meant to his principal audience--his followers in Iran. Abrahamian analyzes...
"Fanatic," "dogmatic," "fundamentalist"--these are the words most often used in the West to describe the Ayatollah Khomeini. The essays in this book c...
The role of torture in recent Iranian politics is the subject of Ervand Abrahamian's important and disturbing book. Although Iran officially banned torture in the early twentieth century, Abrahamian provides documentation of its use under the Shahs and of the widespread utilization of torture and public confession under the Islamic Republican governments. His study is based on an extensive body of material, including Amnesty International reports, prison literature, and victims' accounts that together give the book a chilling immediacy. According to human rights organizations, Iran has...
The role of torture in recent Iranian politics is the subject of Ervand Abrahamian's important and disturbing book. Although Iran officially banned to...
Emphasizing the interaction between political organizations and social forces, Ervand Abrahamian discusses Iranian society and politics during the period between the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 and the Islamic Revolution of 1977-1979. Presented here is a study of the emergence of horizontal divisions, or socio-economic classes, in a country with strong vertical divisions based on ethnicity, religious ideology, and regional particularism. Professor Abrahamian focuses on the class and ethnic roots of the major radical movements in the modem era, particularly the constitutional...
Emphasizing the interaction between political organizations and social forces, Ervand Abrahamian discusses Iranian society and politics during the ...
In August 1953, the CIA orchestrated the swift overthrow of Iran s democratically elected leader and installed Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in his place. Over the next twenty-six years, the United States backed the unpopular, authoritarian shah and his secret police; in exchange, it reaped a huge share of Iran s oil wealth. The blowback was inevitable, as this relevant, readable (Kirkus Reviews) history by noted Iran scholar Ervand Abrahamian shows. When the 1979 Iranian Revolution deposed the shah and replaced his puppet government with a radical Islamic republic under Ayatollah...
In August 1953, the CIA orchestrated the swift overthrow of Iran s democratically elected leader and installed Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in his place...
