Download or read book Reading Lolita in Tehran written by Azar Nafisi and published by Random House. This book was released on 2003-12-30 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • We all have dreams—things we fantasize about doing and generally never get around to. This is the story of Azar Nafisi’s dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading—Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolita—their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran. Nafisi’s account flashes back to the early days of the revolution, when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum. When a radical Islamist in Nafisi’s class questioned her decision to teach The Great Gatsby, which he saw as an immoral work that preached falsehoods of “the Great Satan,” she decided to let him put Gatsby on trial and stood as the sole witness for the defense. Azar Nafisi’s luminous tale offers a fascinating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women’s lives in revolutionary Iran. It is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, written with a startlingly original voice. Praise for Reading Lolita in Tehran “Anyone who has ever belonged to a book group must read this book. Azar Nafisi takes us into the vivid lives of eight women who must meet in secret to explore the forbidden fiction of the West. It is at once a celebration of the power of the novel and a cry of outrage at the reality in which these women are trapped. The ayatollahs don’ t know it, but Nafisi is one of the heroes of the Islamic Republic.”—Geraldine Brooks, author of Nine Parts of Desire

Download or read book Shahnameh written by Abolqasem Ferdowsi and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 1041 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive translation by Dick Davis of the great national epic of Iran—now newly revised and expanded to be the most complete English-language edition A Penguin Classic Dick Davis—“our pre-eminent translator from the Persian” (The Washington Post)—has revised and expanded his acclaimed translation of Ferdowsi’s masterpiece, adding more than 100 pages of newly translated text. Davis’s elegant combination of prose and verse allows the poetry of the Shahnameh to sing its own tales directly, interspersed sparingly with clearly marked explanations to ease along modern readers. Originally composed for the Samanid princes of Khorasan in the tenth century, the Shahnameh is among the greatest works of world literature. This prodigious narrative tells the story of pre-Islamic Persia, from the mythical creation of the world and the dawn of Persian civilization through the seventh-century Arab conquest. The stories of the Shahnameh are deeply embedded in Persian culture and beyond, as attested by their appearance in such works as The Kite Runner and the love poems of Rumi and Hafez. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Download or read book America and Iran written by John Ghazvinian and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A history of the relationship between Iran and America from the 1700s through the current day"--

Download or read book Unthinkable written by Kenneth Pollack and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines Iran's current nuclear potential while charting America's future course of action, recounting the prolonged clash between both nations to outline options for American policymakers.

Download or read book Tribeswomen of Iran written by Julia Huang and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-09-19 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has permitted very few Western scholars to conduct research in the country. Foreign travellers and media persons have limited access and much Iranian scholarship tends to focus on the realms of politics and government. Here Julia Huang provides a remarkable account of local tribal Iranian life, offering a rare glimpse into the daily rhythms and social richness beyond the capital city of Tehran. The Qashqa'i are a confederation of nomadic tribes, of which the Qermezi ('Red Ones') are one, migrating semiannually between winter pastures near the Persian Gulf and summer pastures southwest of the city of Isfahan. Huang has visited and traveled with the Qermezi for extended periods across fourteen years. Drawing on her experiences, participation and observation, she offers an intimate window onto their life. She focuses on a small group of women spanning four generations who are part of a large extended family, and describes their ways of life, their activities and interactions, and their distinctive sociocultural and ecological setting. Like other nomadic peoples around the world, the Qashqa'i increasingly face pressures that threaten their livelihoods, lifestyles and culture. Huang shows us how women negotiate compromises between customary tribal values and external influences, and sketches their efforts to resist the influences of an Islamizing, modernizing and centralizing government. With shadows and resonances that rebound across the stories of these women, Huang is able to present multiple perspectives on events and contentious issues, for instance the politicized issue of women's state-mandated modest dress. Huang also explains how the Turkic-speaking Qashqa'i relate to the wider Iranian society and the Islamic Republic of Iran, adapting to a rapidly changing world while retaining tribal values and a distinctive ethnolinguistic identity as one of Iran's national minorities. In describing life at the local level in Iran, Huang depicts a community largely beyond the scope and reach of foreign travellers and the Western media. With rich ethnographic description and analysis, intimate portraits of the private lives and spaces of women and children, and diverse perspectives, this engagingly written account documents a disappearing way of life. 'Tribeswomen of Iran' is essential reading for all those interested in Iran, the Middle East, anthropology, nomadism and gender.

Download or read book Iran in the Middle East written by Houchang Chehabi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iran's interaction with its neighbours is a topic of wide interest. But while many historical studies of the country concentrate purely on political events and high-profile actors, this book takes the opposite approach: writing history from below, it instead focuses on the role of everyday lives. Modern Iranian historiography has been dominated by ideas of nationalism, modernization, religion, autocracy, revolution and war. Iran in the Middle East adds new dimensions to the study of four crucial areas of Iranian history: the events and impact of the Constitutional Revolution, Iran's transnational connections, the social history of Iran and developments in historiography.

Download or read book The Iran Primer written by Robin B. Wright and published by US Institute of Peace Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive but concise overview of Iran's politics, economy, military, foreign policy, and nuclear program. The volume chronicles U.S.-Iran relations under six American presidents and probes five options for dealing with Iran. Organized thematically, this book provides top-level briefings by 50 top experts on Iran (both Iranian and Western authors) and is a practical and accessible "go-to" resource for practitioners, policymakers, academics, and students, as well as a fascinating wealth of information for anyone interested in understanding Iran's pivotal role in world politics.

Download or read book Between Foreigners and Shi is written by Daniel Tsadik and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-09 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on archival and primary sources in Persian, Hebrew, Judeo-Persian, Arabic, and European languages, Between Foreigners and Shi'is examines the Jews' religious, social, and political status in nineteenth-century Iran. This book, which focuses on Nasir al-Din Shah's reign (1848-1896), is the first comprehensive scholarly attempt to weave all these threads into a single tapestry. This case study of the Jewish minority illuminates broader processes pertaining to other religious minorities and Iranian society in general, and the interaction among intervening foreigners, the Shi'i majority, and local Jews helps us understand Iranian dilemmas that have persisted well beyond the second half of the nineteenth century.

Download or read book Iran Israel and the Jews written by Aaron Koller and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-03-28 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iran, Israel, and the Jews have a relationship that is in the news all the time. But it cannot be understood just in modern terms. Its roots are 2,500 years old. This volume surveys that history through case studies and broad overviews—from the first intensive contacts under Cyrus the Great, through Persian influence on Judaism evident in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Babylonian Talmud, into the Middle Ages and the flourishing of Judeo-Persian literature and culture, and finally into modern times, when the political, social, and cultural ties are multifaceted and profound. Written by experts in both Iranian and Jewish studies, these essays convey the richness and complexity of a long and tumultuous relationship between two ancient and great civilizations, which continues to shape the world today.

Download or read book Kurds and the State in Iran written by Abbas Vali and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In early 1946, Kurds declared an independent republic in north-west Iran. The Mahabad Republic, as it became known, was the first time that the Kurds experienced self-rule in the modern era. Although short-lived, the Republic had a formative influence on the subsequent development of Kurdish nationalist movements in Iran and the wider region. Here, Abbas Vali disputes the conventional view that the Kurdish Republic was the result of a Soviet conspiracy to dismember Iran, a side-effect of the Cold War. Instead he emphasizes the diversity of the internal Iranian and Kurdish factors that led to the formation of the Republic, arguing that the Republic represents the culmination of a new and modern Kurdish national identity. This was an identity which emerged in response to the exclusionary effects of the political and discursive processes and practices of the construction of a modern Iranian nation-state and national identity since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which often excluded and attempted to override a Kurdish one. Vali contends that this process, largely due to the socio-economic and cultural impact of the rule of Pahlavis, in reality forced the Kurdish people of Iran to form and reinforce their own ethno-linguistic and ethno-national community. The expressions of this separate identity can be traced through the formation and dissolution of Kurdish national parties, such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI). 'Kurds and the State in Iran' offers an analysis of the formation and effects of the concepts of the state, the nation, nationalism and ethnic identity, which go beyond current ethnicist and constructivist theories, thus making it essential reading for anyone interested in the Kurds or the development of national and state identities in the Middle East.

Download or read book Iran written by John Limbert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-22 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iran is the only Middle Eastern state to have preserved its national identity through the upheavals of Arab, Turkish and Mongol invasions. It is heir to the richest culture in the Middle East: a culture that extends far beyond the state’s political boundaries. This book, first published in 1987, traces elements of continuity in Iranian society from pre-Islamic times to the turmoil of the Islamic Republic. The author discusses the persistence of religion as a dominant force in Iran’s politics and society; the attraction of unorthodox doctrines such as Mazdakism, Baha’ism, and revolutionary Shi’ism; the tradition of strong, charismatic leadership; and the constant problem of ruling peoples of diverse tribal, religious and linguistic affiliations. He finds explanations for recent political changes in conditions peculiarly Iranian and examines the emerging post-revolutionary society along with some of its new institutions, including the revolutionary guards, the assembly, the neighbourhood committees, and the Friday prayer leaders.

Download or read book Iran and Pakistan written by Alex Vatanka and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-07-28 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The respective policies of the governments of Iran and Pakistan pose serious challenges to US interests in the Middle East, Asia and beyond. These two regional powers, with a combined population of around 300 million, have been historically intertwined in various cultural, religious and political ways. Iran was the first country to recognise the emerging independent state of Pakistan in 1947 and the Shah of Iran was the first head of state to visit the new nation. While this relationship shifted following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and tensions do exist between Sunni Pakistan and Shi'i Iran, there has nevertheless been a history of cooperation between the two countries in fields that are of great strategic interest to the US: Afghanistan, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Yet much of this history of cooperation, conflict and ongoing interactions remains unexplored. Alex Vatanka here presents the first comprehensive analysis of this long-standing and complex relationship.

Download or read book Iran s National Security Policy written by Shahram Chubin and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How dangerous is the Iranian military build-up and what are the strategic objectives of the Islamic regime following Operation Deset Storm? This book address these important issues in the context of the dangerous, perplexing and ever changing regional politics of the Persian Gulf.

Download or read book Iran and the Deccan written by Keelan Overton and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1400s, Iranian elites began migrating to the Deccan plateau of southern India. Lured to the region for many reasons, these poets, traders, statesmen, and artists of all kinds left an indelible mark on the Islamic sultanates that ruled the Deccan until the late seventeenth century. The result was the creation of a robust transregional Persianate network linking such distant cities as Bidar and Shiraz, Bijapur and Isfahan, and Golconda and Mashhad. Iran and the Deccan explores the circulation of art, culture, and talent between Iran and the Deccan over a three-hundred-year period. Its interdisciplinary contributions consider the factors that prompted migration, the physical and intellectual poles of connectivity between the two regions, and processes of adaptation and response. Placing the Deccan at the center of Indo-Persian and early modern global history, Iran and the Deccan reveals how mobility, liminality, and cultural translation nuance the traditional methods and boundaries of the humanities.

Download or read book Historical Aspects of Cataloging and Classification written by Martin D. Joachim and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Triple Axis written by Ariane Tabatabai and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most significant challenge to the post-Cold War international order is the growing power of ambitious states opposed to the West. Iran, Russia and China each view the global structure through the prism of historical experience. Rejecting the universality of Western liberal values, these states and their governments each consider the relative decline of Western economic hegemony as an opportunity. Yet cooperation between them remains fragmentary. The end of Western sanctions and the Iranian nuclear deal; the Syrian conflict; new institutions in Central and East Asia: in all these areas and beyond, the potential for unity or divergence is striking. In this new and comprehensive study, Ariane Tabatabai and Dina Esfandiary address the substance of this `triple axis' in the realms of energy, trade, and military security. In particular they scrutinise Iran-Russia and the often overlooked field of Iran-China relations. Their argument - that interactions between the three will shape the world stage for decades to come - will be of interest to anyone looking to understand the contemporary international security puzzle.

Download or read book The Iranian Nuclear Crisis written by Seyed Hossein Mousavian and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2012-07-12 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first detailed Iranian account of the diplomatic struggle between Iran and the international community, The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir opens in 2002, as news of Iran's clandestine uranium enrichment and plutonium production facilities emerge. Seyed Hossein Mousavian, previously the head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and spokesman for Tehran's nuclear negotiating team, brings the reader into Tehran's private deliberations as its leaders wrestle with internal and external adversaries. Mousavian provides readers with intimate knowledge of Iran's interactions with the International Atomic Energy Agency and global powers. His personal story comes alive as he vividly recounts his arrest and interrogations on charges of espionage. Dramatic episodes of diplomatic missions tell much about the author and the swirling dynamics of Iranian politics and diplomacy—undercurrents that must be understood now more than ever. As intense debate continues over the direction of Iran's nuclear program, Mousavian weighs the likely effects of military strikes, covert action, sanctions, and diplomatic engagement, considering their potential to resolve the nuclear crisis. Contents 1. The Origin and Development of Iran's Nuclear Program 2. The First Crisis 3. From Tehran to Paris 4. From the Paris Agreement to the 2005 Presidential Election 5. The Larijani Period 6. To the Security Council 7. Back to the Security Council and a New Domestic Situation 8. Iran Alone: The Jalili Period 9. U.S. Engagement 10. The Crisis Worsens 11. Conclusion