This book examines the structure and ideology of all the main leftist groups in Iran. It considers their role in the Revolution, and analyses their relations with Khomeini and his colleagues. It also explains why the majority of the leftist organisations had defected from the Islamic regime by the summer of 1981. A second important theme of the book is the way in which the Soviet Union responded to the treatment of the Left by the Islamic government. Based on extensive analysis of original source material in Farsi and other languages and numerous interviews with leftist leaders and participants, the book provides a detailed portrait of the Left in contemporary Iran.

In this book, Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr look at the political history of Iran in the modern era, and offer an in-depth analysis of the prospects for democracy to flourish there. After having produced the only successful Islamist challenge to the state, a revolution, and an Islamic Republic, Iran is now poised to produce a genuine and indigenous democratic movement in the Muslim world. Democracy in Iran is neither a sudden development nor a western import, and Gheissari and Nasr seek to understand why democracy failed to grow roots and lost ground to an autocratic Iranian state.

"With sure and steady moves, Sai and Hikaru are making a name for Hikaru Shindo as the one who might possibly beat the venerable Akira Toya ... Principals, teachers and Go tournament kids alike are all wondering who this unruly bronco of a Go player is."--Cover.

In this revised and expanded version of Nikki Keddie's work, Roots of Revolution, the author brings the story of modern Iran to the present day, exploring the political, cultural, and social changes of the past quarter century. Keddie provides insightful commentary on the Iran-Iraq war, the Persian Gulf War, and the effects of 9/11 and Iran's strategic relationship with the US. She also discusses developments in education, health care, the arts and the role of women.

The Iran depicted in the headlines is a rogue state ruled by ever-more-defiant Islamic fundamentalists. Yet inside the borders, an unheralded transformation of a wholly different political bent is occurring. A "liberal renaissance," as one Iranian thinker terms it, is emerging in Iran, and in this pamphlet, Danny Postel charts the contours of the intellectual upheaval. Reading "Legitimation Crisis" in Tehran examines the conflicted positions of the Left toward Iran since 1979, and, in particular, critically reconsiders Foucault's connection to the Iranian Revolution. Postel explores the various elements of the subtle liberal revolution and proposes a host of potential implications of this transformation for Western liberalism. He examines the appeal of Jürgen Habermas, Hannah Arendt, and Isaiah Berlin among Iranian intellectuals and ponders how their ideas appear back to us when refracted through a Persian prism. Postel closes with a thought-provoking conversation with eminent Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo. A provocative and incisive polemic highly relevant to our times, Reading "Legitimation Crisis" in Tehran will be of interest to anyone who wants to get beyond alarmist rhetoric and truly understand contemporary Iran.

Insightful and informative, Mehdi Moslem's is the first book to provide a detailed account of Iran's post-revolutionary politics. A profound analysis of the diverse political, sociocultural, economic, and foreign policy issues that have engulfed revolutionary Islamic Iran since its inception, this book is not only a must read for those interested in contemporary Iran but also an indispensable book for teachers of contemporary Middle East affairs and scholars of Islamic politics. Since the landslide victory of President Mohammed Khatami in May 1997, the official line of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been a study in contradictions. On one hand, Khatami condemned Iran's past fanaticism, declaring his nation eager to embrace global standards based on mutual respect between nations regardless of ideologies: on the other hand, an opposing faction continues to perpetrate Iran's enmity toward the West, America in particular. These two main factions also present competing versions of current national policies, and consequently the regime appears simultaneously to be practical and ideological—and to outsiders unfathomable.

In the summer of 2009, as she was covering the popular uprisings in Tehran for the New York Times, Iranian journalist Nazila Fathi received a phone call. "They have given your photo to snipers," a government source warned her. Soon after, with undercover agents closing in, Fathi fled the country with her husband and two children, beginning a life of exile. In The Lonely War, Fathi interweaves her story with that of the country she left behind, showing how Iran is locked in a battle between hardliners and reformers that dates back to the country's 1979 revolution. Fathi was nine years old when that uprising replaced the Iranian shah with a radical Islamic regime. Her father, an official at a government ministry, was fired for wearing a necktie and knowing English; to support his family he was forced to labor in an orchard hundreds of miles from Tehran. At the same time, the family's destitute, uneducated housekeeper was able to retire and purchase a modern apartment -- all because her family supported the new regime. As Fathi shows, changes like these caused decades of inequality -- especially for the poor and for women -- to vanish overnight. Yet a new breed of tyranny took its place, as she discovered when she began her journalistic career. Fathi quickly confronted the upper limits of opportunity for women in the new Iran and earned the enmity of the country's ruthless intelligence service. But while she and many other Iranians have fled for the safety of the West, millions of their middleclass countrymen -- many of them the same people whom the regime once lifted out of poverty -- continue pushing for more personal freedoms and a renewed relationship with the outside world. Drawing on over two decades of reporting and extensive interviews with both ordinary Iranians and high-level officials before and since her departure, Fathi describes Iran's awakening alongside her own, revealing how moderates are steadily retaking the country.