This book is a theoretical inquiry on the relation of the body politic with the religious movements in the time between the Constitutional Revolution and the Islamic Revolution in Iran; it illustrates speculative and historical analyses on the relationship of state, religion, and socio-political status in the late Qajar dynasty (1905-1925) and the whole Pahlavi monarchy. Particularly, it examines the applicability of "liberal conservatism" to the era of the last Shah of Iran. The thesis defines the term political conservatism in accord with Edmund Burke's philosophy. It deals next with the definition of religious reformation, the peculiar characteristics of Islam, the Shi'ite political theology, and the contradictory usages of "Islamic reformation" in the literature. The text gives an overview of the two antagonist sides of nationalism. It provides also an analysis of the Islamic Republic as a new political phenomenon in Iranian history and the transformation of all concepts after 1979. Ayatollahi aims to assess the Iranian conservatism, the possibility of conciliation between politics and religion before the collapse of the Pahlavi, and "the conditions of possibility" for any restoration of the monarchy. About the author Amir Yahya Ayatollahi received his Ph.D. from the University of Vechta, Germany. His fields of interest are political philosophy, modern Middle East, Iranian studies, and Shi'ism.

This book is a theoretical inquiry on the relation of the body politic with the religious movements in the time between the Constitutional Revolution and the Islamic Revolution in Iran; it illustrates speculative and historical analyses on the relationship of state, religion, and socio-political status in the late Qajar dynasty (1905-1925) and the whole Pahlavi monarchy. Particularly, it examines the applicability of “liberal conservatism” to the era of the last Shah of Iran. The thesis defines the term political conservatism in accord with Edmund Burke’s philosophy. It deals next with the definition of religious reformation, the peculiar characteristics of Islam, the Shi'ite political theology, and the contradictory usages of “Islamic reformation” in the literature. The text gives an overview of the two antagonist sides of nationalism. It provides also an analysis of the Islamic Republic as a new political phenomenon in Iranian history and the transformation of all concepts after 1979. Ayatollahi aims to assess the Iranian conservatism, the possibility of conciliation between politics and religion before the collapse of the Pahlavi, and “the conditions of possibility” for any restoration of the monarchy.

Iranian women tell in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. The Islamic revolution of 1979 transformed all areas of Iranian life. For women, the consequences were extensive and profound, as the state set out to reverse legal and social rights women had won and to dictate many aspects of women's lives, including what they could study and how they must dress and relate to men. Reconstructed Lives presents Iranian women telling in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. Through a series of interviews with professional and working women in Iran—doctors, lawyers, writers, professors, secretaries, businesswomen—Haleh Esfandiari gathers dramatic accounts of what has happened to their lives as women in an Islamic society. She and her informants describe the strategies by which women try to and sometimes succeed in subverting the state's agenda. Esfandiari also provides historical background on the women's movement in Iran. She finds evidence in Iran's experience that even women from "traditional" and working classes do not easily surrender rights or access they have gained to education, career opportunities, and a public role.

Why were urban women veiled in the early 1900s, unveiled from 1936 to 1979, and reveiled after the 1979 revolution? This question forms the basis of Hamideh Sedghi's original and unprecedented contribution to politics and Middle Eastern studies. Using primary and secondary sources, Sedghi offers new knowledge on women's agency in relation to state power. In this rigorous analysis she places contention over women at the centre of the political struggle between secular and religious forces and demonstrates that control over women's identities, sexuality, and labor has been central to the consolidation of state power. Sedghi links politics and culture with economics to present an integrated analysis of the private and public lives of different classes of women and their modes of resistance to state power.

State structures, international forces, and class relations: Theda Skocpol shows how all three combine to explain the origins and accomplishments of social-revolutionary transformations. Social revolutions have been rare but undeniably of enormous importance in modern world history. States and Social Revolutions provides a new frame of reference for analyzing the causes, the conflicts, and the outcomes of such revolutions. It develops a rigorous, comparative historical analysis of three major cases: the French Revolution of 1787 through the early 1800s, the Russian Revolution of 1917 through the 1930s, and the Chinese Revolution of 1911 through the 1960s. Believing that existing theories of revolution, both Marxist and non-Marxist, are inadequate to explain the actual historical patterns of revolutions, Skocpol urges us to adopt fresh perspectives. Above all, she maintains that states conceived as administrative and coercive organizations potentially autonomous from class controls and interests must be made central to explanations of revolutions.

Despite the relative calm apparent in Iran today, there is unmistakable evidence of political, social, and cultural ferment stirring beneath the surface. The authors of Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran¿a unique group of scholars, activists, and artists¿explore that unrest and its challenge to the legitimacy and stability of the present authoritarian regime. Ranging from political theory to music, from human rights law to social media, their contributions reveal the tenacious and continually evolving forces that are at work resisting the status quo.

A succinct and highly readable narrative of modern Iran from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.