"By the dawn of the twentieth century, Iran was sinking deeper into crisis. It was losing its economic and political independence to the Russian and British empires as a profligate absolute monarchy threw the country ever deeper into debt. A few intellectuals saw the rule of law as the solution to this, and eventually their ideas were taken up by a broad coalition of merchants, clerics, and artisans. In 1906, it forced the Shah to grant Iran a constitution and soon a parliament (Majles) was elected - both firsts in the Muslim world. Ahmad Kasravi's History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution chronicles this event and the ensuing struggles. Alternately elegiac and brutally honest, Kasravi's work is central to modern Iranian political consciousness in a way few other author's works are to their nation's. It is respected across the political spectrum. It will strike the reader how fresh the issues raised by the revolution and the ensuing struggles are today. For example, the history presents a spirited defense of secular nationalism but gives a refreshingly honest view of the Islamic polemic against it. Kasravi was born in an impoverished borough of Tabriz. Raised to be a clergyman, he became a zealous champion of constitutionalism, having witnessed his town's constitutionalists' courageous fight for the Majles and the rule of law. Moved by the terrible suffering his province of Azerbaijan underwent in the course of the revolution, he drafted a version of the present history around 1922. The present volume introduces the reader to life in Iran before the Constitutional Revolution, the ferment among the intellectuals and reformers during this period, the revolution's immediate causes, the ensuing mobilizations, and the granting of the Constitution and the opening of the Majles. It closes with a survey of the first period of Iran's constitutional experiment"--Unedited summary from volume 1 cover.

In this thoroughly researched account, Mansour Bonakdarian provides an in-depth exploration of the substantial British support for the Iranian constitutional and national struggle of 1906-1911, illuminating the opposition in Britain to Anglo-Russian imperialist intervention in Iran. In painstaking and compelling detail Bonakdarian analyzes, in particular, the role of the Persia Committee, a lobbying group founded in 1908 for the sole purpose of changing Britain's policy toward Iran. This book's strength lies in its coverage of how Sir Edward Grey's policy toward Iran was shaped and the extent to which this policy was affected by sustained criticism from a number of disparate groups including dissenters, radicals, socialists, liberal imperialists, and conservatives. The volume and breadth of primary archival materials used is extensive. Not only have all the standard collections been examined, such as the Foreign Office files and the Cabinet and Grey papers, but also numerous private archives in international libraries have been consulted. Bonakdarian's deep understanding of the Iranian issues yields a rich and balanced approach to the literature in the field. With clear and systematic arguments, he offers an account of diplomatic history that is accessible and persuasive. His scholarship is certain to reinvigorate dialogue on the subject of Anglo-Iranian relations.

In his book on constitutional revolutions in the Ottoman Empire and Iran in the early twentieth century, Nader Sohrabi considers the global diffusion of institutions and ideas, their regional and local reworking and the long-term consequences of adaptations. He delves into historic reasons for greater resilience of democratic institutions in Turkey as compared to Iran. Arguing that revolutions are time-bound phenomena whose forms follow global models in vogue at particular historical junctures, he challenges the ahistoric and purely local understanding of them. Furthermore, he argues that macro-structural preconditions alone cannot explain the occurrence of revolutions, but global waves, contingent events and the intervention of agency work together to bring them about in competition with other possible outcomes. To establish these points, the book draws on a wide array of archival and primary sources that afford a minute look at revolutions' unfolding.

During the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906 to 1911 a variety of forces played key roles in overthrowing a repressive regime. Afary sheds new light on the role of ordinary citizens and peasantry, the status of Iranian women, and the multifaceted structure of Iranian society.