In Revolutionary Iran, Michael Axworthy offers a richly textured and authoritative history of Iran from the 1979 revolution to the present.

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.

A unique and major contribution to the scholarly and policy debate on American foreign and economic policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. A volume that will be of interest to scholars and policy makers who struggle to understand the complex rivalry between these two nations and wish to analyze the Iranian/American relationship since 1979. Authors frame the conflicted relationship between Iran and the United States as a low intensity conflict, embodying elements of superpower gamesmanship, insurgent tactics and economic warfare. Revolutionary Iran and the United States is unique in its approach by exploring how diplomatic, military, and economic weapons are employed to bolster each nation's strategic and tactical advantage. This analysis encompasses the political, military, and economic facets of the rivalry.

A myth-busting insider’s account of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that destroyed US influence in the country and transformed the politics of the Middle East and the world. The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran was one of the seminal events of our time. It inaugurated more than thirty years of war in the Middle East and fostered an Islamic radicalism that shapes foreign policy in the United States and Europe to this day. Drawing on his lifetime of engagement with Iran, James Buchan explains the history that gave rise to the Revolution, in which Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters displaced the Shah with little diffi­culty. Mystifyingly to outsiders, the people of Iran turned their backs on a successful Westernized government for an amateurish religious regime. Buchan dispels myths about the Iranian Revolution and instead assesses the historical forces to which it responded. He puts the extremism of the Islamic regime in perspective: a truly radical revolution, it can be compared to the French or Russian Revolu­tions. Using recently declassified diplomatic papers and Persian-language news reports, diaries, memoirs, interviews, and theological tracts, Buchan illumi­nates both Khomeini and the Shah. His writing is always clear, dispassionate, and informative. The Iranian Revolution was a turning point in modern history, and James Buchan’s Days of God is, as London’s Independent put it, “a compelling, beautifully written history” of that event.

For decades, political observers and pundits have characterized the Islamic Republic of Iran as an ideologically rigid state on the verge of collapse, exclusively connected to a narrow social base. In A Social Revolution, Kevan Harris convincingly demonstrates how they are wrong. Previous studies ignore the forceful consequences of three decades of social change following the 1979 revolution. Today, more people in the country are connected to welfare and social policy institutions than to any other form of state organization. In fact, much of Iran’s current political turbulence is the result of the success of these social welfare programs, which have created newly educated and mobilized social classes advocating for change. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in Iran between 2006 and 2011, Harris shows how the revolutionary regime endured though the expansion of health, education, and aid programs that have both embedded the state in everyday life and empowered its challengers. This first serious book on the social policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran opens a new line of inquiry into the study of welfare states in countries where they are often overlooked or ignored.

Since the Iranian Revolution more than thirty years ago, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), also known as the Revolutionary Guard, has conducted covert and overt military operations, built an economic empire, and trained, financed, and guided terrorists to pursue one goalùthe preservation and expansion of the Islamic revolution. Inside Iran the IRGC influences the country's politics, economy, and foreign policy, and controls its nuclear program. Outside Iran the operations of the IRGC and its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq, have left a trail of deathùfrom the 1983 truck bombings in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. peacekeepers and 58 French paratroopers to numerous attacks on U.S. (and allied) troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, no longer content to strike in Iraq and Afghanistan or at targets in the Middle East and south Asia, the IRGC and Hezbollah operate throughout North and South America, developing the capability to strike the continental United States and deliver a blow to America's economy far worse than today's financial crisis. In Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Steven O'Hern reveals new information about the IRGC and Hezbollah operations inside America based on interviews with former and active members of the FBI, CIA, local law enforcement, military intelligence, and even one former Revolutionary Guard officer. The author details how the IRGC has grown into such a dangerous foe and explains how its members' activities have put the American economy and American lives at risk. His research suggests that the IRGC may be planning to explode, high above a Midwestern city, a nuclear weapon that would emit an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to render anything with a computer chip useless, including the hundreds of transformers that control the country's electrical grid. One thing is certain, according to O'Hern: the Revolutionary Guard is a serious threat to the well-being of all U.S. citizens.

How Iran—and the world around it—have changed in the four decades since a revolutionary theocracy took power Iran's 1979 revolution is one of the most important events of the late twentieth century. The overthrow of the Western-leaning Shah and the emergence of a unique religious government reshaped Iran, dramatically shifted the balance of power in the Middle East and generated serious challenges to the global geopolitical order—challenges that continue to this day. The seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran later that same year and the ensuing hostage crisis resulted in an acrimonious breach between America and Iran that remains unresolved to this day. The revolution also precipitated a calamitous war between Iran and Iraq and an expansion of the U.S. military's role in maintaining security in and around the Persian Gulf. Forty years after the revolution, more than two dozen experts look back on the rise of the Islamic Republic and explore what the startling events of 1979 continue to mean for the volatile Middle East as well as the rest of the world. The authors explore the events of the revolution itself; whether its promises have been kept or broken; the impact of clerical rule on ordinary Iranians, especially women; the continuing antagonism with the United States; and the repercussions not only for Iran's immediate neighborhood but also for the broader Middle East. Complete with a helpful timeline and suggestions for further reading, this book helps put the Iranian revolution in historical and geopolitical perspective, both for experts who have long studied the Middle East and for curious readers interested in fallout from the intense turmoil of four decades ago.