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Author: Nicholas Jubber
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2010-05-04
Total Pages: 362
ISBN-13: 0306818841
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Documents the author's investigation of daily life in Iran and Afghanistan, from religious shrines to illegal dance parties, and his use of Ferdowsi's epic poem "Shåahnåameh" as a key to past and present conflict in the region.
Author: Rebecca Lowe
Publisher: September Publishing
Published: 2022-03-24
Total Pages: 434
ISBN-13: 1914613031
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL WRITING AWARDS TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR One woman, one bike and one richly entertaining, perception-altering journey of discovery. In 2015, as the Syrian War raged and the refugee crisis reached its peak, Rebecca Lowe set off on her bicycle across the Middle East. Driven by a desire to learn more about this troubled region and its relationship with the West, Lowe's 11,000-kilometre journey took her through Europe to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, the Gulf and finally to Iran. It was an odyssey through landscapes and history that captured her heart, but also a deeply challenging cycle across mountains, deserts and repressive police states that nearly defeated her. Plagued by punctures and battling temperatures ranging from -6 to 48C, Lowe was rescued frequently by farmers and refugees, villagers and urbanites alike, and relied almost entirely on the kindness and hospitality of locals to complete this living portrait of the modern Middle East. This is her evocative, deeply researched and often very funny account of her travels - and the people, politics and culture she encountered. 'Terrifically compelling ... bursting with humour, adventure and insight into the rich landscapes and history of the Middle East. Lowe recounts the beauty, kindnesses and complexities of the lands she travels through with an illuminating insight. A wonderful new travel writer.' Sir Ranulph Fiennes
Author: Andrew Scott Cooper
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Published: 2016-08-02
Total Pages: 416
ISBN-13: 0805098984
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →An immersive, gripping account of the rise and fall of Iran's glamorous Pahlavi dynasty, written with the cooperation of the late Shah's widow, Empress Farah, Iranian revolutionaries and US officials from the Carter administration In this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth century's most complicated personalities, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Andrew Scott Cooper traces the Shah's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He draws the turbulence of the post-war era during which the Shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the world's top five powers. Readers get the story of the Shah's political career alongside the story of his courtship and marriage to Farah Diba, who became a power in her own right, the beloved family they created, and an exclusive look at life inside the palace during the Iranian Revolution. Cooper's investigative account ultimately delivers the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty through the eyes of those who were there: leading Iranian revolutionaries; President Jimmy Carter and White House officials; US Ambassador William Sullivan and his staff in the American embassy in Tehran; American families caught up in the drama; even Empress Farah herself, and the rest of the Iranian Imperial family. Intimate and sweeping at once, The Fall of Heaven recreates in stunning detail the dramatic and final days of one of the world's most legendary ruling families, the unseating of which helped set the stage for the current state of the Middle East.
Author: Richard W. Bulliet
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2006-03-22
Total Pages: 199
ISBN-13: 0231127979
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The 'clash of civilisations' so often talked about in connection with relations between the West and Arab nations is, argues Richard Bulliet, no more than dangerous sophistry based on misconceptions in American government. He sets out the common ground between Islam and Christianity.
Author: Michael Eisenstadt
Publisher:
Published: 2015
Total Pages: 52
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is an unconventional adversary that requires unconventional approaches to planning, strategy, and policy. These approaches must take into account the country's sophisticated culture, the regime's religious-ideological orientation, the abiding importance of Iranian nationalism, and Iran's modern military history. And they must recognize the IRI's unique approach to statecraft, strategy, and the use of force. Doing so is no easy task for Americans, as the United States and Iran are studies in opposites when it comes to culture, values, and politics ... These factors complicate efforts to understand Tehran's behavior and to formulate effective policies toward the Islamic Republic. Iran's political system, moreover, is unique in that it is characterized by parallel structures that are the locus of multiple power centers. These consist of both traditional state and revolutionary institutions: the President and Supreme Leader; the Majles and Guardian Council; the Judiciary and Special Clerical Courts; and the regular military and the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), with the former often counterbalanced, and sometimes undermined by the actions of the latter. This organizational complexity and the importance of informal influence networks also often renders the functioning of the regime opaque -- even to many of its own members -- making it especially difficult for outsiders to understand what is going on. Finally, planners and policymakers dealing with the IRI should keep in mind three generalizations that can be said of a number of countries, but which are especially true for the Islamic Republic: [1] Nothing in Iran is as it seems; things are often to the contrary ... [2] Nothing in Iran is black and white; ambiguity and shades of grey rule ... [3] Iranian politics are characterized by numerous contradictions and paradoxes ... With these caveats in mind, this monograph will attempt to identify the salient features of the IRI's strategic culture, and their implications for planning, strategy, and policy"--Introduction.
Author: Jason Elliot
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Published: 2007-10-02
Total Pages: 477
ISBN-13: 1466837829
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A fascinating journey through the cultural and artistic landscape of Iran, both past and present, by the New York Times bestselling author of An Unexpected Light In our current climate of war and suspicion, Iran is depicted as the "next" rogue nation that America and the world must "deal with." But the rhetoric about nuclear weapons and jihad obscures the real Iran: an ancient nation and culture, both sophisticated and isolated, which still exists clandestinely in major cities as well as the country's remote mountains and deserts. Jason Elliot has spent the last four years traveling in Iran, and in this remarkable book he reveals the many sides of the culture, art, architecture, and people that Westerners cannot see or conveniently ignore. Part close reading of symbols and images, part history, and part intimate interviews with Iranians of many different kinds—from wealthy aristocrats at forbidden parties to tribal horsemen in the most remote mountain villages, who have never seen a Westerner—Mirrors of the Unseen is a beautiful and thought-provoking book by one of the world's most acclaimed adventurers and authors.
Author: Nicholas Jubber
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey
Published: 2016-11-15
Total Pages: 228
ISBN-13: 147364528X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Sahara: a dream-like, far away landscape of Lawrence of Arabia and Wilfred Thesiger, The English Patient and Star Wars, and home to nomadic communities whose ways of life stretch back millennia. Today it's a teeth-janglingly dangerous destination, where the threat of jihadists lurks just over the horizon. Following in the footsteps of 16th century traveller Leo Africanus, Nicholas Jubber went on a turbulent adventure to the forgotten places of North Africa and the legendary Timbuktu. Once the seat of African civilization and home to the richest man who ever lived, this mythic city is now scarred by terrorist occupation and is so remote its own inhabitants hail you with the greeting, 'Welcome to the middle of nowhere'. From the cattle markets of the Atlas, across the Western Sahara and up the Niger river, Nicholas joins the camps of the Tuareg, Fulani, Berbers, and other communities, to learn about their craft, their values and their place in the world. The Timbuktu School for Nomads is a unique look at a resilient city and how the nomads pit ancient ways of life against the challenges of the 21st century.
Author: Ervand Abrahamian
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 1993-10-29
Total Pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9780520085039
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The author argues that the Ayatollah Khomeini and his Islamic movement should be seen as a form of Third World political populism - a radical but pragmatic middle-class movement that strives to enter, rather than reject, the modern age.
Author: Adrian Levy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2010-08-10
Total Pages: 628
ISBN-13: 0802718604
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The shocking, three-decade story of A. Q. Khan and Pakistan's nuclear program, and the complicity of the United States in the spread of nuclear weaponry. On December 15, 1975, A. Q. Khan-a young Pakistani scientist working in Holland-stole top-secret blueprints for a revolutionary new process to arm a nuclear bomb. His original intention, and that of his government, was purely patriotic-to provide Pakistan a counter to India's recently unveiled nuclear device. However, as Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark chillingly relate in their masterful investigation of Khan's career over the past thirty years, over time that limited ambition mushroomed into the world's largest clandestine network engaged in selling nuclear secrets-a mercenary and illicit program managed by the Pakistani military and made possible, in large part, by aid money from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Libya, and by indiscriminate assistance from China. Based on hundreds of interviews in the United States, Pakistan, India, Israel, Europe, and Southeast Asia, Deception is a masterwork of reportage and dramatic storytelling by two of the world's most resourceful investigative journalists. Urgently important, it should stimulate debate and command a reexamination of our national priorities.
Author: Janet Afary
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2010-07-15
Total Pages: 312
ISBN-13: 0226007871
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In 1978, as the protests against the Shah of Iran reached their zenith, philosopher Michel Foucault was working as a special correspondent for Corriere della Sera and le Nouvel Observateur. During his little-known stint as a journalist, Foucault traveled to Iran, met with leaders like Ayatollah Khomeini, and wrote a series of articles on the revolution. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution is the first book-length analysis of these essays on Iran, the majority of which have never before appeared in English. Accompanying the analysis are annotated translations of the Iran writings in their entirety and the at times blistering responses from such contemporaneous critics as Middle East scholar Maxime Rodinson as well as comments on the revolution by feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. In this important and controversial account, Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson illuminate Foucault's support of the Islamist movement. They also show how Foucault's experiences in Iran contributed to a turning point in his thought, influencing his ideas on the Enlightenment, homosexuality, and his search for political spirituality. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution informs current discussion on the divisions that have reemerged among Western intellectuals over the response to radical Islamism after September 11. Foucault's provocative writings are thus essential for understanding the history and the future of the West's relationship with Iran and, more generally, to political Islam. In their examination of these journalistic pieces, Afary and Anderson offer a surprising glimpse into the mind of a celebrated thinker.
