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Resources to read on Iran, the Shah's regime and its overthrow? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'd like something that goes over the American interference in the region, debunks myths about the Shah's government (for example, I've seen people here mention that only the wealthy dressed like westerners) and explains how the Iranian revolution happened.

Is Targeting Iran any good? I know Chomsky has some shit takes but he usually does a good job dismantling US narrative & propaganda

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ervand Abrahamian's works are the best scholarship on Iran, he contextualizes the revolution and Khomeini in its historical and ideological context as a synthesis of Islam, Marxism, and political structures of Gaullist France. He deconstructs the idea of Iran as a totalitarian theocracy and shows it's much closer to like, Sukarno's Indonesia than any other country. I'd recommend A Modern History of Iran and also Essays on the Islamic Republic .

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

100%! he's by far the best English language Iranian historian.

everyone should read this short article Why the Islamic Republic Has Survived
Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic is a great insight into Khomeini's ideology and the founding ideology of the state. he refutes the idea of Iran as a fundamentalist theocracy and shows that, in fact, it's a very practical bourgeois state
The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations is probably what OP is looking for
Iran Between Two Revolutions also covers the coup, but describes in-depth the communist Tudeh party (and other leftist movements) and how they were sabotaged by the West