this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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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 .
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