The Ayatollahs Democracy

Download The Ayatollahs Democracy full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online The Ayatollahs Democracy ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

The Ayatollahs' Democracy: An Iranian Challenge

Author : Hooman Majd
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393080390
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Ayatollahs' Democracy: An Iranian Challenge by : Hooman Majd

Download or read book The Ayatollahs' Democracy: An Iranian Challenge written by Hooman Majd and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-09-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One of America's most astute revealers of Iranian culture and identity."-Reza Aslan, The Atlantic Hailed as one of the year's best foreign policy books, Hooman Majd's latest offers dramatic perspective on a country with global ambitions, an elaborate political culture, and policies with enormous implications for world peace. Drawing on privileged access to the Iranian power elite, Majd "gives a harrowing description of the aftermath of the 2009 presidential elections in Iran" (Haleh Esfandiari). This "nimble take on Iran's fraught political landscape" (Kirkus Reviews) "sounds a dire warning to those in the West who want a democratic Iran. . . . Let us hope the President is listening" (Reza Aslan, The Atlantic).

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

Author : Hooman Majd
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0767928016
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (679 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by : Hooman Majd

Download or read book The Ayatollah Begs to Differ written by Hooman Majd and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-07-28 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Including a new preface that discusses the Iranian mood during and after the June 2009 presidential election and subsequent protests, this is an intimate look at a paradoxical country from a uniquely qualified journalist. The grandson of an eminent ayatollah and the son of an Iranian diplomat, Hooman Majd offers perspective on Iran's complex and misunderstood culture through an insightful tour of Iranian culture, introducing fascinating characters from all walks of life, including zealous government officials, tough female cab drivers, and open-minded, reformist ayatollahs. It's an Iran that will surprise readers and challenge Western stereotypes. A Los Angeles Times and Economist Best Book of the Year With a New Preface

Patriotic Ayatollahs

Author : Caroleen Marji Sayej
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501714767
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Patriotic Ayatollahs by : Caroleen Marji Sayej

Download or read book Patriotic Ayatollahs written by Caroleen Marji Sayej and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patriotic Ayatollahs explores the contributions of senior clerics in state and nation-building after the 2003 Iraq war. Caroleen Sayej suggests that the four so-called Grand Ayatollahs, the highest-ranking clerics of Iraqi Shiism, took on a new and unexpected political role after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Drawing on previously unexamined Arabic-language fatwas, speeches, and communiqués of Iraq’s four grand ayatollahs, this book analyzes how their new pronouncements and narratives shaped public debates after 2003. Sayej argues that, contrary to standard narratives about religious actors, the Grand Ayatollahs were among the most progressive voices in the new Iraqi nation. She traces the transformative position of Ayatollah Sistani as the "guardian of democracy" after 2003. Sistani was, in particular, instrumental in derailing American plans that would have excluded Iraqis from the state-building process—a remarkable story in which an octogenarian cleric takes on the United States over the meaning of democracy. Patriotic Ayatollahs’ counter-conventional argument about the ayatollahs’ vision of a nonsectarian nation is neatly realized. Through her deep knowledge and long-term engagement with Iraqi politics, Sayej advances our understanding of how the post-Saddam Iraqi nation was built.

The Political Ideology of Ayatollah Khamenei

Author : Yvette Hovsepian-Bearce
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317605810
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Political Ideology of Ayatollah Khamenei by : Yvette Hovsepian-Bearce

Download or read book The Political Ideology of Ayatollah Khamenei written by Yvette Hovsepian-Bearce and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-03 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ayatollah ʿAli Hosseini Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is one of the most controversial and influential Muslim leaders in the world today. As Iran’s main decision-maker, his theocratic ideology and decisions carry global consequences. The Political Ideology of Ayatollah Khamenei is the first book to identify and analyze the development and evolution of the theocratic ideology of the Supreme Leader from 1962 to 2014, using his own writings, speeches, and biographies, as well as literature published in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This work provides new insights into Khamenei’s political thought and behavior and their impact on Iran’s domestic, regional, and international policies. Correlating the development of Khamenei’s personality, character, and political behavior with Iran’s internal and external challenges, this study explores key issues of the Middle East region, in particular Iran’s political posture toward Israel, the United States, and the Muslim world, and the diplomatic crises unfolding over Iran’s nuclear development program. This work provides a comprehensive chronological and thematic survey of Khamenei’s life. This book will be of interest to students, scholars, researchers, diplomats, and policymakers focusing on Middle Eastern politics, Iranian affairs, Islamic studies, and international relations; and could serve as an essential resource for those striving to understand Iran’s policies toward Israel, the United States, and the Muslim world, as shaped by its supreme autocrat.

The Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran

Author : Alex Vatanka
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0755600053
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (556 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran by : Alex Vatanka

Download or read book The Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran written by Alex Vatanka and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-08 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding the foreign policy agenda and behavior of the Islamic Republic of Iran is a critical challenge for the world. But where do the principal Iranian regime actors come from in terms of political background, experiences and interests? Which types of ambitions or policy conflicts have dominated and shaped foreign policy debates since 1979? This book explains the internal policy process in Tehran by following two regime personalities, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who before his death in January 2017 held some of the most powerful political positions in Iran. No two men have been more influential in dictating the regime's decision-making processes since 1979. Yet little is known about how their competing worldviews and interests, their key moments of dispute – both personal or policy-based – or their personal ambitions have informed the trajectory of Iranian politics. The book analyzes Khamenei and Rafsanjani's own words and writings - and accounts of them given by others - to reveal how the domestic policy contest has shaped Tehran's actions on the regional and international stage. Comprising primary and secondary Iranian sources - including untapped memoirs, newspaper reports, and Iranian electronic media and personal interviews - the book highlights the principal rivalries over the lifespan of the Islamic Republic and offers new insights into the present and future of Iranian foreign policy.

Guardians of the Revolution

Author : Ray Takeyh
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199754101
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Guardians of the Revolution by : Ray Takeyh

Download or read book Guardians of the Revolution written by Ray Takeyh and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-05 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a quarter century, Iran has been one of America's chief nemeses. Ever since Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah in 1979, the relationship between the two nations has been antagonistic: revolutionary guards chanting against the Great Satan, Bush fulminating against the Axis of Evil, Iranian support for Hezbollah, and President Ahmadinejad blaming the U.S. for the world's ills. The unending war of words suggests an intractable divide between Iran and the West, one that may very well lead to a shooting war in the near future. But as Ray Takeyh shows in this accessible and authoritative history of Iran's relations with the world since the revolution, behind the famous personalities and extremist slogans is a nation that is far more pragmatic--and complex--than many in the West have been led to believe. Takeyh explodes many of our simplistic myths of Iran as an intransigently Islamist foe of the West. Tracing the course of Iranian policy since the 1979 revolution, Takeyh identifies four distinct periods: the revolutionary era of the 1980s, the tempered gradualism following the death of Khomeini and the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1989, the "reformist" period from 1997-2005 under President Khatami, and the shift toward confrontation and radicalism since the election of President Ahmadinejad in 2005. Takeyh shows that three powerful forces--Islamism, pragmatism, and great power pretensions--have competed in each of these periods, and that Iran's often paradoxical policies are in reality a series of compromises between the hardliners and the moderates, often with wild oscillations between pragmatism and ideological dogmatism. The U.S.'s task, Takeyh argues, is to find strategies that address Iran's objectionable behavior without demonizing this key player in an increasingly vital and volatile region. With its clear-sighted grasp of both nuance and historical sweep, Guardians of the Revolution will stand as the standard work on this controversial--and central--actor in world politics for years to come.

The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay

Author : Hooman Majd
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385535333
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (855 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay by : Hooman Majd

Download or read book The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay written by Hooman Majd and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With U.S.–Iran relations at a thirty-year low, Iranian-American writer Hooman Majd dared to take his young family on a year-long sojourn in Tehran. The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay traces their domestic adventures and closely tracks the political drama of a terrible year for Iran's government. It was an annus horribilis for Iran's Supreme Leader. The Green Movement had been crushed, but the regime was on edge, anxious lest democratic protests resurge. International sanctions were dragging down the economy while talk of war with the West grew. Hooman Majd was there for all of it. A new father at age fifty, he decided to take his blonde, blue-eyed Midwestern yoga instructor wife Karri and his adorable, only-eats-organic infant son Khash from their hip Brooklyn neighborhood to spend a year in the land of his birth. It was to be a year of discovery for Majd, too, who had only lived in Iran as a child. The book opens ominously as Majd is stopped at the airport by intelligence officers who show him a four-inch thick security file about his books and journalism and warn him not to write about Iran during his stay. Majd brushes it off—but doesn't tell Karri—and the family soon settles in to the rituals of middle class life in Tehran: finding an apartment (which requires many thousands of dollars, all of which, bafflingly, is returned to you when you leave), a secure internet connection (one that persuades the local censors you are in New York) and a bootlegger (self-explanatory). Karri masters the head scarf, but not before being stopped for mal-veiling, twice. They endure fasting at Ramadan and keep up with Khash in a country weirdly obsessed with children. All the while, Majd fields calls from security officers and he and Karri eye the headlines—the arrest of an American "spy," the British embassy riots, the Arab Spring—and wonder if they are pushing their luck. The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay is a sparkling account of life under a quixotic authoritarian regime that offers rare and intimate insight into a country and its people, as well as a personal story of exile and a search for the meaning of home.

The Ayatollahs and the MEK

Author : Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr.
Publisher : University of Baltimore College of Public Affairs
ISBN 13 : 9780578536095
Total Pages : 42 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (36 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Ayatollahs and the MEK by : Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr.

Download or read book The Ayatollahs and the MEK written by Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr. and published by University of Baltimore College of Public Affairs. This book was released on 2019-06-24 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ambassador Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr. presents breaking revelations and documents compelling evidence that the Islamic Republic of Iran's organized opposition, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), and its parliament-in-exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), have been falsely portrayed in Washington for years.

Khomeini's the Little Green Book

Author : Ayatollah Khomeini
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781541241541
Total Pages : 76 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (415 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Khomeini's the Little Green Book by : Ayatollah Khomeini

Download or read book Khomeini's the Little Green Book written by Ayatollah Khomeini and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-12-21 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Little Green Book is a collection of fatawah handed down by the most prominent and arguably one of the most influential Muslim clerics in modern history; the Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Mosavi Khomeini, commonly known as the Ayatollah Khomeini. Fatawah (the plural of fatwah) are Islamic religious decrees sent down by Muslim religious leaders. Since Islam demands that Muslims abide by Sharia - Islamic law as individuals and as a society, these fatawah are not simply religious insights or advice. They are legal pronouncements, and define the law of the land in an Islamic country. In his unrivaled role as Iran's Supreme Leader and the highest-ranking cleric for Shi'a Muslims, the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatawah guided the lives of more Shi'a Muslims than did any other Islamic leader throughout history

Blood & Oil

Author : Manucher Farmanfarmaian
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0307430715
Total Pages : 569 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Blood & Oil by : Manucher Farmanfarmaian

Download or read book Blood & Oil written by Manucher Farmanfarmaian and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PEN/West Award Finalist " Told with energy, perception and great charm. . . . For anyone who wants to . . . gain insight into the great cultural and political richness of Iran, past, present and future, this book is a marvelous introduction." --Fred Halliday, Los Angeles Times Iran was the first country in the Middle East to develop an oil industry, and oil has been central to its tumultuous twentieth-century history. A finalist for the PEN/West Award, Blood and Oil tells the epic inside story of the battle for Iranian oil. A prominent member of one of Iran's most powerful aristocratic families--so feared by Khomeini that the entire clan was blacklisted--Prince Manucher Farmanfarmaian was raised in a harem at the heart of Iran's imperial court. With wit and provocative detail, he describes the days when he served as the Shah's oil adviser and pioneered the partnership that resulted in OPEC. Beautifully written and epic in its scope, this scintillating memoir provides a fascinating history of modern Iran. " Distinguished by its political acumen, historical sense, and vividness of description and anecdote. It is also notable for a wry sense of humour. . . . Amid the euphoria about the development of the oilfields of Central Asia and the Transcaucasus, [its] lesson should be kept in mind." --Anatol Lieven, Financial Times "A book of stunning beauty . . . One of the best accounts of the cultural and political life of modern Iran, it is exquisite and intimate, rendered with art-istry and detail." --Fouad Ajami

The Ayatollahs and Democracy in Iraq

Author : Juan Ricardo Cole
Publisher : Amsterdam University Press
ISBN 13 : 9053568891
Total Pages : 29 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (535 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Ayatollahs and Democracy in Iraq by : Juan Ricardo Cole

Download or read book The Ayatollahs and Democracy in Iraq written by Juan Ricardo Cole and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation. Iraqi Shiism is undergoing profound changes, leading to new elaborations of the relationship between clerics and democratic principles in an Islamic state. The Najaf tradition of thinking about Shiite Islam and the modern state in Iraq, which first developed during the Iranian constitutional revolution of 1905-1911, rejects the principle that supreme power in an Islamic state must be in clerical hands. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Iraq stands in this tradition, and he has striven to uphold and develop it since the fall of Saddam Hussein. At key points he came into conflict with the Bush administration, which was not eager for direct democracy. Parliamentary politics have also drawn in clerics of the Dawa Party, the Sadr movement, and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, all of which had earlier been authoritarian in outlook. Is Iraqi Shiism experiencing its enlightenment moment? This title can be previewed in Google Books - http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9789053568897.

The Mantle of the Prophet

Author : Roy P. Mottahedeh
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1780747381
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (87 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Mantle of the Prophet by : Roy P. Mottahedeh

Download or read book The Mantle of the Prophet written by Roy P. Mottahedeh and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Simon & Schuster eBook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every reader.

Foucault and the Iranian Revolution

Author : Janet Afary
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226007871
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (26 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Foucault and the Iranian Revolution by : Janet Afary

Download or read book Foucault and the Iranian Revolution written by Janet Afary and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Guests of the Ayatollah

Author : Mark Bowden
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 1555846084
Total Pages : 710 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (558 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Guests of the Ayatollah by : Mark Bowden

Download or read book Guests of the Ayatollah written by Mark Bowden and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down delivers a “suspenseful and inspiring” account of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 (The Wall Street Journal). On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans captive, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages’ cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly recreated, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world. “The passions of the moment still reverberate . . . you can feel them on every page.” —Time “A complex story full of cruelty, heroism, foolishness and tragic misunderstandings.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Essential reading . . . A.” —Entertainment Weekly

Crooked Alleys

Author : Soraya Lennie
Publisher : Hurst Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1787386090
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (873 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Crooked Alleys by : Soraya Lennie

Download or read book Crooked Alleys written by Soraya Lennie and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2021-07-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By 2013, Iranians were suffocating, as though the streets had become narrower, the buildings taller, the dirty air thicker. In electing Hassan Rouhani, they chose a new, reformist leader, burying the days when a Holocaust-denying president had pushed Iran to the edge of economic collapse and conflict. But the nation hasn’t quite broken free. Iranians are trying to move on, yet the Islamic Republic remains a prisoner of the past, plagued by US sanctions, a broken economy and the threat of war. After 2016, Donald Trump’s presidency derailed the future of millions of people. How have Iranians met these challenges? What future do they imagine now? Has Iran missed its best chance for real change? Crooked Alleys explores Iran during some of its darkest days, but also its most hopeful.

The Case For Democracy

Author : Natan Sharansky
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 0786737069
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (867 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Case For Democracy by : Natan Sharansky

Download or read book The Case For Democracy written by Natan Sharansky and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2009-02-23 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natan Sharansky believes that the truest expression of democracy is the ability to stand in the middle of a town square and express one's views without fear of imprisonment. He should know. A dissident in the USSR, Sharansky was jailed for nine years for challenging Soviet policies. During that time he reinforced his moral conviction that democracy is essential to both protecting human rights and maintaining global peace and security. Sharansky was catapulted onto the Israeli political stage in 1996. In the last eight years, he has served as a minister in four different Israeli cabinets, including a stint as Deputy Prime Minister, playing a key role in government decision making from the peace negotiations at Wye to the war against Palestinian terror. In his views, he has been as consistent as he has been stubborn: Tyranny, whether in the Soviet Union or the Middle East, must always be made to bow before democracy. Drawing on a lifetime of experience of democracy and its absence, Sharansky believes that only democracy can safeguard the well-being of societies. For Sharansky, when it comes to democracy, politics is not a matter of left and right, but right and wrong. This is a passionately argued book from a man who carries supreme moral authority to make the case he does here: that the spread of democracy everywhere is not only possible, but also essential to the survival of our civilization. His argument is sure to stir controversy on all sides; this is arguably the great issue of our times.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Author : Azar Nafisi
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1588360792
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (883 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Reading Lolita in Tehran by : Azar Nafisi

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