A History of Modern Iran (review)

Ervand Abrahamian has undertaken answering the historian’s perpetual question: How did we get to where we are today? In doing so, he has produced a scholarly, readable, and engaging study of the last century of Iranian history. Those readers familiar with Dr. Abrahamian’s earlier works, such as Tortured Confessions, Iran between Two Revolutions, and The Iranian Mojahedin, will have high expectations for this book. They will not be disappointed. For the student of Iran and for the general reader looking for the historical grounding of today’s tangled situation in Iran, there is no better place to start than this book.

The author begins his account with the setting of Qajar Iran around 1900 and ends with the Islamic Republic’s presidential election of 2005. The waves of progress that had engulfed much of Europe in the 19^th century — in technology, industry, transport, science, mass literacy, medicine, education, nationalism, democracy, etc. — had barely touched Iran. The 20^th century was a different story, and Iran took the full force of changes elsewhere. The effects were profound. The author shows (p. 6) just how profound, with some remarkable figures comparing Iran in 1900–06 and Iran in 2000–06. A few examples: Life expectancy went from 30 years to 70; enrollment in state schools went from 7,000 to 19 million; and enrollment in universities went from zero to 1.7 million.

Professor Abrahamian is above all a serious researcher. But he combines his scholarship with a deep concern for the fate of ordinary human beings trapped by events beyond their control. He cares a great deal about Iran and the often tragic history of its people. Nor is he afraid to call things by their right name. For example, he dedicates this book to the “memory of the more than three hundred political prisoners hanged in 1988 for refusing to feign belief in the supernatural” (p. v). The author describes this 1988 bloodbath in the text (pp. 181–82), although there he gives the number of victims as 2,800.

He does not hesitate to deal with some of the most sensitive and emotional issues in modern Iranian history: the Babi/ Baha’i movement, the rule of Reza Shah, the Mosaddeq era, and the Islamic Revolution and its chaotic and bloody aftermath in the Islamic Republic. In all the uncertainties surrounding these events, he maintains the highest standards of scholarship and avoids the conspiracy theory, the scapegoat theory, or the demonization of this or that figure. He seeks out the most likely and most straightforward explanation of events. For example, when questioning the reason for the ill-advised January 1978 Ettelaat editorial criticizing the clergy and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in particular — an editorial that would set off the chain of disturbances that would eventually topple the Pahlavi monarchy — he concludes, “One should never underestimate the role of stupidity in history” (p. 158).

There are great riches to be found in this brief account of Iran’s turbulent modern history. It provides a valuable and dramatic account of a century of Iranian turmoil, violence, and intrigue. The story also includes a cast of strong-willed and colorful individuals. Abrahamian’s book would be an excellent choice for any university course that deals with modern Iran. Beyond that advantage, the reader will find great pleasure in just dipping into sections at random and finding passages like the following:

Every Nowruz, [Muhammad Reza] Shah held grand audience in the royal palace with the leading dignitaries bowing before him and holding hands over their private parts — a gesture which to some was reminiscent of the days when ministers were household slaves and as such could be castrated by their royal masters

(p. 130).

Is this story true? True or not, it is a tale worthy of Herodotus in its illustration of the point that officials of the Pahlavi...