In the past twenty-five years Iran has experienced a revolution and a turbulent postrevolutionary period under an Islamic state that declared itself the government of the oppressed while it struggled to establish a utopian Islamic economy. In this pioneering work Farhad Nomani and Sohrab Behdad provide a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of change and class configuration in Iranian society. Using an empirical framework, they map the trajectory of class changes over time, specifically noting the movements between prerevolutionary and postrevolutionary Iran. A centerpiece of the book is its analysis of the changes in the pattern of employment of women in the postrevolutionary period. Despite its conceptual and quantitative approach, the book is written in a clear and lucid style, making it accessible to a wide audience. The authors provide a fresh look into Iranian society by exploring the changes in its essential underlying economic structure, and in doing so, they lay the foundation for comparative studies of the social hierarchy of labor in other Middle Eastern countries.

Ladjevardi follows the rise and ebb of political development in Iran from 1906 to the recent past by looking at one aspect of political growth: the emergence of labor unions. Presenting a history of the labor movement in Iran, he begins with the genesis of the movement from 1906 to 1921 and then looks at the state of labor unions under Reza Shah from 1925 to 1941. During the 1940s polarization between the unions and the government increased, as did Soviet and British influence on the unions. From 1946 to 1953 Iran saw the rise and fall of government-controlled unions and, after 1953, workers without unions. After years of frustration and countless examples of contradiction between words and deeds, the workers and most of the politically aware populace became cynical about constitutional government, parliamentary elections, the promises of the ruling elite, and the friendship of the Western powers. Ladjevardi’s account of the labor movement in Iran leaves little doubt as to why the workers turned against them all: the monarchy, “Western democracy,” and the West itself.

Based on a thesis, focuses on the workers of Iran and their experience of workers' control during the revolutionary period following the insurrection of February 1979. Considers the emergence of particular forms of work and workers' organizations, "shuras" or factory committees in the industrial workplaces; attempts to evaluate the experience and demise of the "shuras". Discusses the international dimension of the working class movement.

In the past twenty-five years Iran has experienced a revolution and a turbulent postrevolutionary period under an Islamic state that declared itself the government of the oppressed while it struggled to establish a utopian Islamic economy. In this pioneering work Farhad Nomani and Sohrab Behdad provide a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of change and class configuration in Iranian society. Using an empirical framework, they map the trajectory of class changes over time, specifically noting the movements between prerevolutionary and postrevolutionary Iran. A centerpiece of the book is its analysis of the changes in the pattern of employment of women in the postrevolutionary period. Despite its conceptual and quantitative approach, the book is written in a clear and lucid style, making it accessible to a wide audience. The authors provide a fresh look into Iranian society by exploring the changes in its essential underlying economic structure, and in doing so, they lay the foundation for comparative studies of the social hierarchy of labor in other Middle Eastern countries.

Thirteen years after the Shah of Iran was swept away in a tide of revolutionary fervor, the cruelty and brutality of the new regime remains shocking. In Class, Politics, and Ideology in the Iranian Revolution, Mansoor Moaddel provides the theoretical underpinnings for a richer and clearer understanding of Iran's tumultuous recent history. Analyzing the causes and processes of the revolution through the prisms of class, politics, and ideology, Moaddel argues that the currently dominant theories of revolution insufficiently address the requisite question of ideology: "Ideology is not simply another factor that adds an increment to the causes of revolution. Ideology is the constitutive feature of revolution." Moaddel explains how revolutionary conditions in Iran were created by a combination of state economic policies favoring international capital - which enraged segments of the powerful bourgeoisie - and fluctuations in the world economy that financially weakened Iran. But the central element of the revolutionary crisis of the late 1970s was the development of Shi'i revolutionary discourse as the dominant ideology. As liberalism and communism declined, the potent discourse of revolutionary Islam - with its martyrdom, its religious rituals, its symbolic structures - formed a powerful conduit for popular mobilization. Karl Marx likened the French Revolution to a gigantic broom which swept away all the "medieval rubbish." Drawing from his abundant theoretical, historical, and sociological knowledge, Moaddel illuminates the process by which the gigantic broom of the Iranian Revolution "swept all the medieval rubbish back in."

This book brings together for the first time the work of many of the leading scholars in the field of Middle East working-class history. Using historical material from nineteenth-century Syria, late Ottoman Anatolia, republican Turkey, Egypt from the late nineteenth century through the Sadat period, Iran before and after the overthrow of the Shah, and Ba`thist Iraq, the authors explore different forms and interpretations of working-class identity, action, and organization as expressed in language, culture, and behavior. In addition, they examine different narratives of labor history and the place of workers in their respective national histories. Included are articles by Feroz Ahmad, Assef Bayat, Joel Beinin, Edmund Burke III, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Eric Davis, Ellis Goldberg, Kristin Koptiuch, Zachary Lockman, Marsha Pripstein Posusney, Donald Quataert, and Sherry Vatter. The book provides not only an introduction to the "state of the field" in Middle East working-class history but also demonstrates how that field is being influenced by the new paradigms which are transforming labor history and social history more broadly worldwide. It also opens the way for fruitful comparisons among Middle Eastern countries and between the Middle East and other parts of the world.