Revolutionary Iran
Subtitle: a history of the Islamic republic
By: Michael Axworthy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 496
ISBN-13: 9780199322268
Subjects: Politics and government; History
Description: "In Revolutionary Iran, Michael Axworthy guides us through recent Iranian history from shortly before the 1979 Islamic revolution through the summer of 2009, when Iranians poured into the streets of Tehran by the hundreds of thousands, demanding free, democratic government. Axworthy explains how that outpouring of support for an end to tyranny in Iran paused and then moved on to other areas in the region like Egypt and Libya, leaving Iran's leadership unchanged. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was a defining moment of the modern era. Its success unleashed a wave of Islamist fervor across the Middle East and signaled a sharp decline in the appeal of Western ideologies in the Islamic world. Axworthy takes readers through the major periods in Iranian history over the last thirty years: the overthrow of the old regime and the creation of the new one; the Iran-Iraq war; the reconstruction era following the war; the reformist wave led by Mohammed Khatami; and the present day, in which reactionaries have re-established control. Throughout, he emphasizes that the Iranian revolution was centrally important in modern history because it provided the world with a clear model of development that was not rooted in Western ideologies. Whereas the world's major revolutions of the previous two centuries had been fuelled by Western, secular ideologies, the Iranian Revolution drew its inspiration from Islam. Revolutionary Iran is both richly textured and from one of the leading authorities on the region; combining an expansive scope with the most accessible and definitive account of this epoch in all its humanity"--

"In Revolutionary Iran, Michael Axworthy guides us through recent Iranian history from shortly before the 1979 Islamic revolution through the summer of 2009, when Iranians poured into the streets of Tehran by the hundreds of thousands, demanding free, democratic government. Axworthy explains how that outpouring of support for an end to tyranny in Iran paused and then moved on to other areas in the region like Egypt and Libya, leaving Iran's leadership unchanged"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 431-438) and index.
Table of contents: title: The background: ma chegoneh ma shodim? ('how did we become what we are?'); title: The 1970s and the slide to revolution; title: Like the person he ought to be: Islamic republic, 1979-80; title: Jang-e tahmili: the imposed war, 1980-88; title: The end of the war, the death of the Emam, and reconstruction: Khamenei and Rafsanjani, 1988-97; title: Bim-e mowj (fear of the wave): Khatami and reform, 1997-2005; title: Everything must change so that everything can stay the same: Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, 2005-2012.