Six books to read about Iran

IRAN IS NO stranger to moments of upheaval. The past century has swept Iranians into revolutions, foreign plots, theocracy and state violence: the tumult has reshaped the country into what it is today. Iran is now at the centre of a conflict that threatens to engulf an entire region. These books help explain that story to date. No doubt many new histories will be forthcoming.America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present. By John Ghazvinian. Knopf Doubleday; 688 pages; $37.50. Oneworld; £35An Iranian-American academic argues that, after the second world war, America usurped Britain’s role as colonial bully to Iran. He recounts a tragic story of Iranian overtures spurned by Americans in cahoots with their Israeli and Saudi allies. His assertions can be sweeping, but Mr Ghazvinian writes with wit. “Bald, round and short, [he] seemed almost physically designed to serve as a political football,” he writes of one of Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi’s prime ministers.For the Sun after Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-led Uprising. By Nilo Tabrizy and Fatemeh Jamalpour. Knopf Doubleday; 336 pages; $30. Atlantic Books; £22 Two authors document different sides of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement that swept Iran in 2022. Ms Jamalpour reports from the streets of Iran; Ms Tabrizy focuses on exiles abroad. Together they depict the anger that sparked nationwide protests. They tell the stories of the women who faced Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime head-on.In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran. By Christopher de Bellaigue. HarperCollins; 304 pages; $14.99 and £10.99 The Economist’s former Tehran correspondent, who converted to Islam and married an Iranian woman, writes about the disillusion that even supporters of the Islamic revolution feel about how it turned out. He sympathises with survivors of the atrocity-filled Iran-Iraq war, and tries to reason with a zealot who, as a schoolboy, beat up a female teacher for suggesting that women might have rights. He blends brisk, incisive history with sensitive reporting on a society betrayed by its supremely self-righteous rulers.Iran: A Modern History. By Abbas Amanat. Yale University Press; 1,028 pages; $29 and £30This book presents the past five centuries of Iran’s history in its Persian, Shia context. At 1,000 pages, the tome is not for the fainthearted. But the author, who is an expert on Iranian culture, is a skilful narrator whose use of sources and anecdotes is illuminating. His book should be read by anyone who is curious about the history of political philosophy and ideas. It is especially strong on intellectual history and the role this has played in Iran’s interpretations of political and clerical authority.Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History. By Vali Nasr. Princeton University Press; 408 pages; $35 and £30An Iranian-American scholar with close knowledge of the Islamic Republic, and access to Persian sources, traces how the revolutionary state turned its ideology into a doctrine of regional power, dressing up the shah’s imperial pretensions in clerical garb. The parallels between the shah and the ayatollah are striking: both hid paranoia behind pomp, distrusted popular representation and sought national security by projecting power.King of Kings. By Scott Anderson. Doubleday; 512 pages; $35. Cornerstone; £25Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi ascended to the Peacock Throne in 1941 as a modernising autocrat, pliant in the hands of foreign powers. He went on to command the world’s fifth-largest army. This richly detailed history describes his “glide path toward ruin”: in 1979 he fled from Tehran, shorn of power and dignity. Revolutionaries chastised the shah for his tyranny, but proved more ruthless than the monarch they overthrew.For more on the latest books, films, TV shows, albums and controversies, sign up to Plot Twist, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter