Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
What is really interesting about this book is that Abrahamian tries to challenge various assumptions that we may have about recent events. He always has the capacity to make you think. He shows that the Islamic revolution is a very standard modern revolution rather than something than harks back to earlier centuries.
Your first book is Khomeinism by Ervand Abrahamian.
Yes, Abrahamian is one of the leading historians of modern Iran. He always writes very interesting things about the social and political history of the country and this book is actually a collection of essays that he has written on the Islamic revolution and its aftermath.
What is really interesting about the work he does is that he tries to challenge various assumptions that we may have about recent events. Particularly about the Islamic revolution and the role of the Ayatollah Khomeini. He looks at the way in which Khomeinism became an ideology which borrowed very heavily from left-wing ideas and Islamised them to an extent by putting them into the language of religion. But nonetheless it shows how fluid the thought of not only Ayatollah Khomeini but also the thought of the Islamic revolution really was.
And he deals something of a blow to this idea of a staunchly orthodox Islamic state by exposing the idea that the reality was a much more heterodox movement than people normally accept. So I think this collection of essays is very good for showing that and really challenging many assumptions. He always has the capacity to make you think. He shows that the Islamic revolution is a very standard modern revolution rather than something than harks back to earlier centuries.
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Ali Ansari is the Professor of Iranian History and Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews, as well as Associate Fellow of the Middle East Programme, Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House). He has just finished a study of the recent presidential elections, to be published this month. He is currently working on a book for Cambridge University Press entitled The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran, and has recently been appointed Editor of the Cambridge History of Iran Vol 8 (The Islamic Republic). It is difficult for Iranian people within the country to freely express their views, although the internet makes it easier, he says. But what has been published in the last decade before the current crackdown reflects the fact there is a literate readership that hungers for history.
