Selected as one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times
In recent times, the United States and Iran have seemed closer to war than peace, but that is not where their story began. When America was in its infancy, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams turned to the history of the Persian Empire as they looked for guidance on how to run their new country. And in the following century, Iranian newspapers heralded America as an ideal that their own government might someday emulate. How, then, did the two nations become the adversaries that they are today?
In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of America and Iran over three centuries. Drawing on years of research conducted in both countries – including access to Iranian government archives rarely available to Western scholars – he leads us through the four seasons of US-Iranian relations: from the spring of mutual fascination, where Iran, sick of duplicitous Britain and Russia interfering in its affairs, sought a relationship with the United States, to the long, dark winter of hatred that we are yet to see end. A revealing account, America and Iran lays bare when, where and how it all went wrong – and why it didn’t have to be this way.
Les mer
An epic history revealing how the US and Iran went from allies to adversaries over three hundred years
Introduction
Part I: Spring
1 East of Eden
2 Tashrifat
3 The Amateurs
4 The Professionals
5 The Man from Manila
6 War and Peace
Part II: Summer
7 “The Sordid Side”
8 The Warrior-King
9 Hello Johnny
10 Tehran Spring
11 “One Penny More”
12 The Liberty Bell and the Wool Pajamas
13 1953
Part III: Autumn
14 “Yes” and “Yes, Sir”
15 You Say You Want a Revolution?
16 This Turbulent Priest
17 The Final Emperor
18 The Unthinkable
Part IV: Winter
19 1979 309
20 Dulce et Decorum Est
21 Goodwill Hunting
22 The First Hopey-Changey Moment
23 That September Day
24 The Moral Cold War
25 Atoms for Peace?
26 Designed to Fail
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Archival sources
Notes
Index
Illustration credits
Les mer
‘Delightfully readable, genuinely informative and impressively literate.’
An epic history revealing how the US and Iran went from allies to adversaries over three hundred years
A comprehensive new survey of relations between Iran and the United States, based on years of archival research
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781786079473
Publisert
2020-10-22
Utgiver
Vendor
Oneworld Publications
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
153 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
688
Forfatter
Om bidragsyterne
John Ghazvinian is a historian at the University of Pennsylvania. He was born in Iran, raised in London and Los Angeles, and has a doctorate in history from the University of Oxford. He is the author of Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil and he has written for the Sunday Times, New Statesman, Slate and The Nation. He lives in Philadelphia.