Abbas Amanat

And as a result of that, the Iranian middle classes greatly suffered.

It's not without a reason that you see 4 million Iranians abroad because basically the emergence of this new power gradually isolated or marginalized the secular middle class who could not survive under that regime and gradually moved out

in the course of perhaps 30, 40 years, up to now.

Iran has the largest, I think I'm right to say so, has the largest brain drain in any country in the world, proportion to its population.

Well, I think it has something to do with the very complex nature of how Iran evolved

over a long period of time, since the 16th century.

That's why, if I would, for a moment, talk about what I have written.

I've written a book that's called Iran, A Modern History, and it does not start in the 20th century.

It starts in the 16th century.

Because that's what I've argued, that this complex process, that at the end of the day resulted in what we see around us today,

is something that was in making for a very long time.

Or at the time, it was thought that it's true religion.

Ever since then, it's disillusionment with that image, or at least a process of disillusionment.

The outcome of it is what we see today.

Basically, that process of 40 years is a process of readjusting to the realities of the world.

that that great moment of romantic success of a revolution, like most revolutions, of course, that is going to change Iran and bring this kind of a moment of greatness led into this great disappointment.

So it's a movement of the great disappointment in a sense.

Like most messianic movements, by the way.

Messianic movements in general are always leading into great disappointments.

But what I have here that perhaps should be added to it, that yes, it was a peculiarity of Iran as a society that had to experience