can anyone recommend me a good book about the iranian revolution, & its causes and ramifications?

I read Roy Mottahedeh's Mantle of the Prophet in college--I think it's still considered one of the best overviews.

a really interesting book, half journalism, half personal reminiscence, is "shah of shahs" by ryszard kapuscinski

http://www.amazon.com/Shah-Shahs-Ryszard-Kapuscinski/dp/0679738010

kapuscinski's just been put into penguin modern classics according to amazon uk

personally i've never heard of him

The Prize by Daniel Yergin does a terrific job of putting it in context, with causes and ramifications. It's not just about Iran, but it's a history of the modern oil age, and one of my top reads in recent years (though it's a new book anymore).

V.S. Naipul's book Among the Believers is good, but not as a summary or a systematic history of the revolution. It is more a collection of impressions and insights upon visiting the country and interviewing many people. Better than 99% of conventional journalism, for sure.

His later follow-on book, Beyond Belief, is sorta OK, and more diffuse, but it has a few interesting bits about Iran in the late 1990s. The book is not really about Iran, though, and covers many other Islamic countries at greater length.

^^ yes yes yes OTM etc. "among the believers" also covers pakistan and indonesia in similar anecdotal/travel-writing fashion. i read this right after 9/11 with my jaw hanging open and my eyebrows on the ceiling.

Naipaul is one of the most obnoxious writers I've ever read. All his portrayals of non-white people are caricatures. Classical servile-imperial-subject mindset. This is the guy who sees "Arab Imperialism" everywhere:

http://english.people.com.cn/200401/19/images/naipaul1.jpg

Fucking Indian-Caribbean Uncle Tom

tell us more

IIRC, the phrase "Arab Imperialism" appears nowhere in any book of Naipul's I've read. If he sees it "everywhere" wouldn't that require him to he see it in the places he wrote about in those books? And if he saw it, and considered it important, then why wouldn't he mention it?

Strange conundrum.

Incoming telegraph say: It's the central idea of "Beyond Belief".

okay for real, do I need to read Among the Believers? i've always assumed it would be infuriating and i am super-suspicious of non-Muslim Indians writing about Islam. can one of y'all who's read it summarize the thesis?

libcrypt, if "seeing Arab Imperialism everywhere" is identical to noting that non-Arab Islamic countries have a religion that is centered elsewhere and a sacred language which is not the native language, and noticing that this fact will affect how people think and act, then I would agree with you. But somehow I don't see the two sides of that equation as commensurate.

To say, as viagra falls said, that "all his portrayals of non-white people are caricatures. Classical servile-imperial-subject mindset" seems to me a gross misreading of and misrepresentation of Naipul.

Islam was spread to Asia by imperial methods. So was Christianity in the western hemisphere. To see the aftermath of that imperialism in those places is only to see the facts of history within the present. Naipul was trying to particularize the idea to something more subtle and less often acknowledged.

What Naipul saw and wrote about could be described as "seeing Arab Imperialism everywhere", but only in same way that one's connecting the drinking of wine in Europe to the influence of ancient Rome could be described as 'seeing Roman Imperialism everywhere.'

I only deliver telegrams. I don't write them.

hs otm, "mantle of the prophet" is what you want

i also recommend stephen kinzer's "all the shah's men" for a look at the '53 coup and how kermit roosevelt screwed everything up. plus its a pretty good read, unlike mottahedeh which i found pretty dry (i mean duh, i guess).

and if youre really interested you cant go wrong reading some of the "primary sources"--ali shariati's "marxism and other western fallacies," in particular, is really interesting... really anything by shariati is worth reading imo

and foucault wrote some interesting stuff about the revolution but i wouldnt take his stuff as gospel truth by any means and probably wouldnt go around citing it (again imo)

that naipaul book is "good" in that naipaul way aka well-written and immensely annoying, if youre a capn save a vs you might like it but if youre like me id avoid it.

i also want to recommend the FANTASTIC "king of the benighted" by Houshang Golshiri which is one of the best books ive ever read i think--its fiction but deals pretty directly w/ the revolution and post-revolutionary iran:

http://www.mage.com/KBN.html

also dont read the naipaul if youre looking for info on iran, iirc iran & the revolution come up fairly briefly at the end, as i remember most of it is a vaguely racist travelogue across south and east asia

wow six posts in a row

"all the shah's men" is one of those books i always look for in bookstores and it's never there

yeah i found it really terrific and totally infuriating, every 10 pages i wanted to throw the book across the room because the CIA was doing something ELSE totally stupid and boneheaded

I think Fred Halliday has written stuff about the Iranian revolution, both journalistic I-was-there stuff and analytical academicy stuff. But I cannot remember names of any of his books.

looking at my bookshelf--check out said arjomand's "the turban for the crown."

as good as the mottahedeh i think

lol how obvious is it that i am in college and have taken some classes? if u want i will get opinions4u about iran.

some more primaries--khomeini's "islam and revolution" and jalal al-e-ahmad's "gharbzadegi" or "westoxification," which predates the revolution by 25 years but was very influential and is a pretty great essay on its own merits imho

this is awesome, max; thank you!

the best part about ordering these books from amazon is the knowledge that your name is now on a list somewhere in arlington

hs do you do postcolonial stuff? have you read the al-e-ahmad?

Another vote for All the Shah's Men. I finished reading it just about a week ago. All the stuff about the CIA and M16 was infuriating but not surprising. What was new to me was learning about who Mossadegh was, the relatively democratic ideals he stood for, and his immense popularity.

http://www.theglitteringeye.com/images/Mossadegh_Time.jpg

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/16579.ctl

^^ pretty interesting book about foucault and iran--as you might guess foucault was sympathetic to the islamist elements of the revolution because of the critique of western rationality/subjectivity/humanism/etc., but the inherent conservatism of most of the ayatollahs makes that relationship pretty complex.

sorry for posting so much, this is the first thread on ILX where i feel like i can speak with any kind of authority

stop apologizing; this rules! i don't do postcolonial stuff anymore but i did in college and i've always been interested in Iran. i am going to seek out this "all the shah's men"!

iran is great--amazing for lit majors afaic, a dream of mine has been to study farsi and read iranian poetry... the only 20th century guy i know who gets read at all widely is sadegh hedayat (im not a huge fan (a little bit too ott gloomy for me)), but theres gobs of it and too much is untranslated. and obviously tons of stuff from the past--rumi, omar khayyam, ferdowsi... srsly tho i recommend the golshiri book from upthread, he mailed that manuscript out of iran written on the underside of the packaging on a box.

amazing movies too

he mailed that manuscript out of iran written on the underside of the packaging on a box.

that IS amazing. sticking it to the imam

have finally had time/money to start getting around to these - the kapuscinscki book is fantastic, tho i think the stuff on islam is its weakest aspect

now on 'all the shah's men' which is a little irritating in its written-to-be-exciting tics. king of the benighted arrived with it last week as well.

ordering 'mantle of the prophet' tomorrow, i think - that one i think looks most likely to deal the particular curiosities i started off with, but i got to a point where i thought i ought to read about the '53 coup first - after that i might look at the primary texts

i have been sidetracked by robert fisk's 'the battle for civilisation', if anyone's keeping count

'the great war for civilisation', sorry

But was it fought for civilization as well?

it's a reference to the back of wwi english army medals. it's spelt with an s.

i'm now trying to remember if they changed the spelling when they localised civ 2

the great war for civ 2

shah of shahs is very good and nice and short

But you see how civilization saved civilisation's ass? And perhaps its arse?

I have no idea how they spell civili(s/z)ation here.

question: do the later iterations of civ still have the 'fundamentalist' unit in them?

oh god, this particular pile of books has been hanging around for three years now

'king of the benighted' was great tho

oh good im glad it was as good as i remembered. i need to read it again.

thanks for your recommendations in general actually, i may even get around to the rest of them one day

heh, i mostly just gave you the syllabus to a great class i took. but it was a great class!