From the rise of constitutionalism during the rule of despotic Qajars, foreign invasions, the Pahlavi regimes' destructive politics, economic, cultural and social modernization efforts and the oil nationalization movement, to the Iranian Revolution, its high hopes, broken promises, repression and intolerance causing national discontent and another socio-political upheaval today, the history of modern Iran has been eventful, unstable and turbulent. In this textbook, Ali Rahnema draws on his experience teaching and researching on modern Iran to render one hundred years of modern Iranian politics and history into easy-to-follow episodic chapters. Step by step, and taking a chronological approach, students are given the core information, analysis, and critical assessment to understand the flow of contemporary Iranian history. This is a comprehensive and exhaustive guide for undergraduate and graduate level courses on modern Iranian history and politics. The textbook is complete with the following pedagogical features: * An initial chapter on how to study Iranian history and how to approach historiography * Images of key individuals discussed in each chapter * Text boxes throughout to highlight key episodes, concepts, and ideas *Three types of exam questions; factual and analytical, seminar, and discussion at the end of each chapter * Glossaries at the end of each chapter *A comprehensive timeline Topics covered include: party formations; the flourishing of the press; the expansion or reduction of political and civil rights; repression and human right abuses; foreign intervention and influence; obsessions over conspiracies; the influence of Western ideologies, the role of nationalism, cultural and historical Persian chauvinism; and Shi'i Islam and competing Shiisms.

This book offers a concise and comprehensive examination of Iran's political history from the establishment of the Qajar dynasty in 1785 until the present. It focuses on both the historical evolution of Iranian political institutions as well as on the processes and phenomena to which these institutions have been exposed. Since politics do not occur within a culturally vacuous context, attention is also drawn to the dominant characteristics of Iran's political culture--from tribalism and religion to the cult of personality and political demagoguery--that have similarly shaped political life in Iran. Such characteristics have acquired added accent under the revolutionary regime of the Islamic Republic, although the revolution's gradual routinization has once again brought about a measure of political normalcy. Attention is drawn to the persistence of specific political dynamics that have proven to be particularly resilient throughout Iran's recent history. Throughout the reigns of the three regimes governing Iran since the eighteenth century--the Qajars, the Pahlavis, and the Islamic Republic--radically different from one another as they have been, the three themes of political autocracy, foreign intervention, and revolution have remained.

This comprehensive work provides a penetrating analysis of modern Middle Eastern history, from the Ottoman and Egyptian reforms, through the challenge of Western imperialism, to the Iranian Revolution and the Gulf War. After introducing the reader to the region's history from the origins of Islam in the seventh century, Cleveland focuses on the past two centuries of profound and often dramatic change. While built around a framework of political history, the book also carefully integrates social, cultural, and economic developments into a single, carefully crafted account. The revised and updated second edition of this benchmark text includes information on the Middle East since the close of the Cold War, and a new section on civil society and Islamic politics in the 1990s.

Provides an overview of specific events, movements, people, political and social groups, places, trends, and chronology. Allows for considerable exploration of a number of historical and contemporary topics and issues. The modern period, defined as 1800-present, is covered extensively.

Covering the period from 1950 through 1988 this book examines the role of a powerful bureaucracy under the Shah, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and post-revolutionary changes in that bureaucracy under the Islamic Republic.