New Books in Iranian Studies

Radio ReOrient 14.1: State of the Ummah: “A War Against the Islamic Republic?”, hosted by Shehla Khan, with Mona Makinejadbanadaki and S. Sayyid.

10 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

This is Radio ReOrient. Welcome to our 14th season of navigating the post-Western and connecting the Islamosphere. We begin this season with Radio R...

Gijs Kruijtzer, "Justifying Transgression: Muslims, Christians, and the Law - 1200 to 1700" (de Gruyter, 2023)

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How do people justify what others see as transgression? Taking that question to the Persian-Muslim and Latin-Christian worlds over the period 1200 to ...

Understanding Iran Under Attack: A Discussion with Author Vali Nasr

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Eleven days into the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel, starting on Feb. 28, 2026, I speak with Vali Nasr, a renowned analyst of Iran. He...

Donna Stein, "The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art" (Skira, 2020)

26 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1970s, American curator Donna Stein served as an art advisor to Empress Farah Diba Pahlavi, the Shahbanu of Iran. Together, Stein and Pahlavi g...

Aria Fani, "Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism" (U Texas Press, 2024)

31 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The dynamic and interconnected ways Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through literature. Contrary to the presumption that literary n...

Amir Moosavi, "Dust That Never Settles: Literary Afterlives of the Iran-Iraq War" (Stanford UP, 2025)

14 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, the Iran-Iraq War was the longest conventional war fought between two states in the twentieth century. It ...

Isabel Toral and Beatrice Gruendler, "An Unruly Classic: Kalīla and Dimna and Its Syriac, Arabic, and Early Persian Versions" (Brill, 2024)

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The collection of wisdom fables known as Kalila and Dimna began its long literary life in Sanskrit more than two millennia ago, and was subsequently ...

Agathe Demarais, "Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests" (Columbia UP, 2022)

25 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sanctions have become the go-to foreign policy tool for the United States. Coercive economic measures such as trade tariffs, financial penalties, and ...

What We Get Wrong About Iran, with Vali Nasr

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey talks with Vali Nasr, Majid Khadduri Professor of International Affairs and Middle...

Pamela Karimi, "Women, Art, Freedom: Artists and Street Politics in Iran" (Leuven UP, 2024)

04 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Women, Art, Freedom: Artists and Street Politics in Iran offers an insightful look at the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran, sparked by t...

Vali Nasr, "Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History" (Princeton UP, 2025)

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country’s goal...

Gohar Homayounpour, "Persian Blues, Psychoanalysis and Mourning" (Routledge, 2022)

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Matthew Pieknik and Christopher Russell speak with Gohar Homayounpour about her book Persian Blues, Psychoanalysis and Mourning ...

Sinem Arcak Casale, "Gifts in the Age of Empire: Ottoman-Safavid Cultural Exchange, 1500–1639" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When the Safavid dynasty, founded in 1501, built a state that championed Iranian identity and Twelver Shi’ism, it prompted the more established Otto...

Parisa Vaziri, "Racial Blackness and Indian Ocean Slavery: Iran's Cinematic Archive" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

09 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the East African and Red Sea coasts to the Persian Gulf ports of Bushihr, Kish, and Hurmuz, sailing and caravan networks supplied Iran and the su...

Jorge Flores, "Empire of Contingency: How Portugal Entered the Indo-Persian World" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Portuguese India was tiny—a handful of trading posts and enclaves, centered on the colony of Goa. The Estado da Índia faced the Mughal Empire and t...

Samuel Hodgkin, "Persianate Verse and the Poetics of Eastern Internationalism" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

12 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At the height of literary nationalisms in the twentieth century, leftist internationalists from Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and the Soviet East ...

Tristan A. Volpe, "Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology" (Oxford UP, 2023)

08 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last seven decades, some states successfully leveraged the threat of acquiring atomic weapons to compel concessions from superpowers. For man...

Ibn al-Muqaffaʿs "Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice"

02 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, translated by Michael Fishbein and James E. Montgomery, with a foreword by Marina...

Arash Azizi, "What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom" (Oneworld, 2024)

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On Tuesday 13 September 2022, all Mahsa Amini has planned is a day shopping in Tehran. Her birthday is next week. But she is arrested as she comes out...

Emrah Yildiz, "Zainab's Traffic: Moving Saints, Selves, and Others Across Borders" (U California Press, 2024)

22 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Emrah Yildiz's new book Zainab’s Traffic: Moving Saints, Selves, and Others Across Borders (University of California Press, 2024) is a masterful ...

Julia Caterina Hartley, "Iran and French Orientalism: Persia in the Literary Culture of Nineteenth-Century France" (Bloomsbury. 2023)

02 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Julia Caterina Hartley about Iran and French Orientalism: Persia in the Literary Culture of Nineteenth-Century France (Bloomsbur...

Cyrus Ali Zargar, "Religion of Love: Sufism and Self-Transformation in the Poetic Imagination of ʿaṭṭār" (SUNY Press, 2024)

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Farid al-Din ‘Attar’s writings have greatly influenced Persian Sufism, but what do we know of him as a thinker? Engaging his diverse writings from...

Farshid Emami, "Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran" (Penn State UP, 2024)

17 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A vibrant urban settlement from mediaeval times and the royal seat of the Safavid dynasty, the city of Isfahan emerged as a great metropolis during th...

Ibrahim Fraihat, "Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)

09 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ibrahim Fraihat’s latest book, Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is much more than an exploration ...

Seyed Ali Alavi, "Iran and Palestine: Past, Present, and Future" (Routledge, 2019)

27 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Iran and Palestine: Past, Present and Future (Routledge, 2019), Seyed Ali Alavi (SOAS University of London) surveys the history of the relationship...

Sari Nusseibeh, "Avicenna's Al-Shifā': Oriental Philosophy" (Routledge, 2018)

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sari Nusseibeh's book Avicenna's Al-Shifā': Oriental Philosophy (Routledge, 2018) deals with the philosophy of Ibn Sina - Avicenna as he was known...

Anita R. Gohdes, "Repression in the Digital Age: Surveillance, Censorship, and the Dynamics of State Violence" (Oxford UP, 2023)

26 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Global adoption of the Internet has exploded, yet we are only beginning to understand the Internet's profound political consequences. Authoritarian st...

Sanjay Subrahmanyam, "Across the Green Sea: Histories from the Western Indian Ocean, 1440-1640" (U Texas Press, 2024)

26 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Across the Green Sea: Histories from the Western Indian Ocean, 1440-1640 (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Sanjay Subrahmanyam presents a hist...

Bedross Der Matossian, "The Armenian Social Democrat Hnchakian Party: Politics, Ideology and Transnational History" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

03 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Bedross Der Matossian's The Armenian Social Democrat Hnchakian Party: Politics, Ideology and Transnational History (Bloomsbury, 2023), based on new ...

Adrian Goldsworthy, "Rome and Persia: The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry" (Basic Books, 2023)

25 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For almost seven centuries, two powers dominated the region we now call the Middle East: Rome and Persia. From the west: The Roman Republic, later the...

Nur Sobers-Khan et al., "Beyond Colonial Rupture: Print Culture and the Emergence of Muslim Modernity in Nineteenth-Century South Asia" (2023)

04 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Scholarly discussions on Islam in print have focused predominantly on the role of Urdu in the development of North Indian Muslim publics (Dubrow, 2018...

Hamas, Iran and Israel: The Perils of Overreaction

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of International Horizons, Colin Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Center, discusses the possible trajectories of the Israel...

James White, "Persian and Arabic Literary Communities in the Seventeenth Century: Migrant Poets between Arabia, Iran and India" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

29 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A wealth of scholarship has highlighted how commercial, political and religious networks expanded across the Arabian Sea during the seventeenth centur...

Katrin Nahidi, "The Cultural Politics of Art in Iran: Modernism, Exhibitions, and Art Production" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

04 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Modernist Iranian art represents a highly diverse field of cultural production deeply involved in discussing questions of modernity and modernization ...

Brian Ulrich, "The Medieval Persian Gulf" (ARC Humanities Press, 2023)

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Persian Gulf today is home to multiple cosmopolitan urban hubs of globalization. This did not start with the discovery of oil. The Medieval Persi...

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, "Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther: Achaemenid Court Culture in the Hebrew Bible" (I. B. Tauris, 2023)

14 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Book of Esther, one of the historical books in the Torah and the Old Testament, is known as a story of community, discrimination, and human ingenu...

Guillemette Crouzet, "Inventing the Middle East: Britain and the Persian Gulf in the Age of Global Imperialism" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The “Middle East” has long been an indispensable and ubiquitous term in discussing world affairs, yet its history remains curiously underexplored....

Peter Good, "The East India Company in Persia: Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Eighteenth Century" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

10 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1747, the city of Kerman in Persia burned amidst chaos, destruction and death perpetrated by the city's own overlord, Nader Shah. After the violent...

Hamid Keshmirshekan, "The Art of Iran in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Tracing the Modern and the Contemporary" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

30 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hamid Keshmirshekan's book The Art of Iran in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Tracing the Modern and the Contemporary (Edinburgh UP, 2023)...

Rahil Roodsaz, "Sexual Self-Fashioning: Iranian Dutch Narratives of Sexuality and Belonging" (Berghahn Books, 2022)

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sexuality and gender have come to serve as measures for cultural belonging in discussions of the position of Muslim immigrants in multicultural Wester...

Amir Sedaghat, "Translating Rumi Into the West: A Linguistic Conundrum and Beyond" (Routledge, 2023)

21 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Amir Artaban Sedaghat’s Translating Rumi into the West: A Linguistic Conundrum and Beyond (Routledge, 2023) engages Rumi, the 13th-century Muslim ...

Rumi, "Gold" (New York Review of Books, 2022)

10 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this conversation, we discuss Haleh Liza Gafori's masterful new translations of poetry by Rumi, the 13th-century Persian mystic and poet. Rumi's wo...

Monika Raesch, "Abbas Kiarostami: Interviews" (UP of Mississippi, 2023)

04 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The cinephile community knows Abbas Kiarostami (1940–2016) as one of the most important filmmakers of the previous decades. This volume illustrates ...

Laetitia Nanquette, "Iranian Literature After the Islamic Revolution: Production and Circulation in Iran and the World" (Edinburgh UP, 2021)

06 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Iranian Literature After the Islamic Revolution: Production and Circulation in Iran and the World (Edinburgh UP, 2021), Dr. Laetitia Nanquette ex...

Alexander Jabbari, "The Making of Persianate Modernity: Language and Literary History between Iran and India" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

16 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Alexander Jabbari’s The Making of Persianate Modernity: Language and Literary History between Iran and India (Cambridge University Press, 2023) na...

Audrey Truschke, "The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule" (Columbia UP, 2021)

10 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Trusch...

Ali Mozaffari and Nigel Westbrook, "Development, Architecture, and the Formation of Heritage in Late Twentieth-Century Iran" (Manchester UP, 2020)

08 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Development, Architecture, and the Formation of Heritage in Late Twentieth-Century Iran (Manchester UP, 2020) analyses the use of the past and the pr...

Seema Golestaneh, "Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran" (Duke UP, 2022)

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In her new ethnographic study Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran (Duke University Press, 2023), Seema Golestaneh guides her re...

Marnia Lazreg, "Foucault's Orient: The Conundrum of Cultural Difference, From Tunisia to Japan" (Berghahn Books, 2020)

17 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Foucault lived in Tunisia for two years and travelled to Japan and Iran more than once. Yet throughout his critical scholarship, he insisted that the ...

Catherine Ashton, "And Then What?: Stories from Twenty-First-Century Diplomacy" (Elliott & Thompson, 2023)

03 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When she was chosen as the EU's first High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR/VP) in 2009, Catherine Ashton admits she "felt n...

Greg Brew, "Petroleum and Progress in Iran: Oil, Development, and the Cold War" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

31 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From the 1940s to 1960s, Iran developed into the world's first “petro-state,” where oil represented the bulk of state revenue and supported an ind...

David S. Painter and Gregory Brew, "The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951-1954" (UNC Press, 2023)

28 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Beginning with the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry in spring 1951 and ending with its reversal following the overthrow of Prime Minister M...

Contextualizing the Iranian Protests: The Role of Women in Leading the Change

23 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Western sanctions have slowed Iran's economy, causing protests against the absence of freedom and opportunities -- teachers their lack of pay; farmers...

The Future of Iranian Resistance: A Discussion with Azadeh Moaveni

04 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How strong is the Iranian resistance? And which parts of society does that resistance come from? Are there any parallels with resistance that brought ...

Pamela Karimi, "Alternative Iran: Contemporary Art and Critical Spatial Practice" (Stanford UP, 2022)

22 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Alternative Iran offers a unique contribution to the field of contemporary art, investigating how Iranian artists engage with space and site amid the ...

Protests in Iran: Maybe not the Tocqueville Paradox

05 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In mid-September of this year, a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died under suspicious circumstances after her arrest by the morality police for...

Agathe Demarais, "Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests" (Columbia UP, 2022)

29 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Sanctions have become the go-to foreign policy tool for the United States. Coercive economic measures such as trade tariffs, financial penalties, and ...

Travis Zadeh, "Wonders and Rarities: The Marvelous Book That Traveled the World and Mapped the Cosmos" (Harvard UP, 2023)

24 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

During the thirteenth century, the Persian naturalist and judge Zakariyyāʾ Qazwīnī authored what became one of the most influential works of natur...

Nile Green, "The Love of Strangers: What Six Muslim Students Learned in Jane Austen's London" (Princeton UP, 2015)

14 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In July 1815, six Iranian students arrived in London under the escort of their chaperone, Captain Joseph D'Arcy. Their mission was to master the moder...

Maaz Bin Bilal, "Temple Lamp: Verses on Banaras by Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan" (India Penguin Classics, 2022)

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Maaz Bin Bilal about Temple Lamp: Verses on Banaras by Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan (India Penguin Classics, 2022). The poem ‘Chirag...

NBN Classic: Matthew K. Shannon, "Losing Hearts and Minds: American-Iranian Relations and International Education during the Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2017)

08 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Losing Hearts and Minds: American Iranian Relations and International Education During the Cold War (Cornell UP, 2017), Matthew K. Shannon, an a...

Reeva Spector Simon, "The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa: The Impact of World War II" (Routledge, 2019)

28 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Incorporating published and archival material, Reeva Spector Simon's book The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa: The Impact of World War II (...

Hussein Banai, "Hidden Liberalism: Burdened Visions of Progress in Modern Iran" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

18 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Compared to rival ideologies, liberalism has fared rather poorly in modern Iran. This is all the more remarkable given the essentially liberal substan...

Ali Mirsepassi, "The Discovery of Iran: Taghi Arani, a Radical Cosmopolitan" (Stanford UP, 2021)

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Discovery of Iran: Taghi Arani, a Radical Cosmopolitan (Stanford UP, 2021), opens with a fascinating passage about the 1934 decree whereby forei...

The Kushnameh: The Persian Epic of Kush the Tusked

21 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Kushnameh is unique, literally. Only one copy of the “Epic of Kush”exists, sitting in the British Library. Hardly anything is known about it...

Shivan Mahendrarajah, "The Sufi Saint of Jam: History, Religion and Politics of a Sunni Shrine in Shi'i Iran" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

08 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Shivan Mahendrarajah’s book, The Sufi Saint of Jam: History, Religion, and Politics of a Sunni Shrine in Shi‘i Iran (Cambridge UP, 2021), which ...

Annie Tracy Samuel, "The Unfinished History of the Iran-Iraq War: Faith, Firepower, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

01 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Unfinished History of the Iran-Iraq War: Faith, Firepower, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (Cambridge UP, 2021) represents a fascinating and c...

Azar Nafisi and Ladan Boroumand on Arendt and Iran

20 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode from the Institute’s Vault, we have an excerpt from a two day symposium--“Hannah Arendt Right Now”--which explored the philosoph...

K. S. Batmanghelichi, "Revolutionary Bodies: Technologies of Gender, Sex, and Self in Contemporary Iran" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

25 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Gender and sexuality in modern Iran are frequently examined through the prisms of nationalist symbols and religious discourse. In Revolutionary Bodie...

Jeremy Friedman, "Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World" (Harvard UP, 2022)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the first decades after World War II, many newly independent Asian and African countries and established Latin American states pursued a socialist ...

Manata Hashemi, "Coming of Age in Iran: Poverty and the Struggle for Dignity" (NYU Press, 2020)

22 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Crippling sanctions, inflation, and unemployment have increasingly burdened young people in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Coming of Age in Iran: ...

Katherine Harvey, "A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq" (Oxford UP, 2022)

08 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Iraq has in the last year taken a lead in sponsoring talks between Middle Eastern arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in an effort to prevent tension in...

Mateo Mohammad Farzaneh, "Iranian Women and Gender in the Iran-Iraq War" (Syracuse UP, 2021)

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Eighteen months after Iran’s Revolution in 1979, hundreds of thousands of the country’s women participated in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) in a v...

Pouya Alimagham, "Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Most observers of Iran viewed the Green Uprisings of 2009 as a 'failed revolution', with many Iranians and those in neighboring Arab countries agreein...

Rose Wellman, "Feeding Iran: Shi`i Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic" (U California Press, 2021)

22 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Since Iran's 1979 Revolution, the imperative to create and protect the inner purity of family and nation in the face of outside spiritual corruption h...

Sima Shakhsari, "Politics of Rightful Killing: Civil Society, Gender, and Sexuality in Weblogistan" (Duke UP, 2020)

10 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 2000s, mainstream international news outlets celebrated the growth of Weblogistan—the online and real-life transnational network of Ira...

Susan Mokhberi, "The Persian Mirror: French Reflections of the Safavid Empire in Early Modern France" (Oxford UP, 2019)

28 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When I/we think about the early modern relationship between France and Persia, Montesquieu's 1721 Lettres persanes is a text that comes to mind imme...

Antonio Panaino: What is Zoroastrianism?

25 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Howard speaks with University of Bologna Iranian specialist Antonio Panaino about Zorastrianism: What is it? How was it influenced by, and in turn inf...

Shankar Nair, "Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia" (U California Press, 2020)

15 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

During the height of Muslim power in Mughal South Asia, Hindu and Muslim scholars worked collaboratively to translate a large body of Hindu Sanskrit t...

Donna Stein, "The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art" (Skira, 2020)

09 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1970s, American curator Donna Stein served as an art advisor to Empress Farah Diba Pahlavi, the Shahbanu of Iran. Together, Stein and Pahlavi g...

Mikiya Koyagi, "Iran in Motion: Mobility, Space, and the Trans-Iranian Railway" (Stanford UP, 2021)

01 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Completed in 1938, the Trans-Iranian Railway connected Tehran to Iran's two major bodies of water: the Caspian Sea in the north and the Persian Gulf i...

Mehr Afshan Farooqi, "Ghalib: a Wilderness at My Doorstep: A Critical Biography" (Allen Lane, 2021)

20 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mirza Ghalib is one of the most celebrated poets in the Urdu literary canon. Yet, at the time, Ghalib was prolific in both Urdu and Persian. His outpu...

Imprisoned in Iran: A Conversation with Wang Xiyue

05 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For 40 months, Wang Xiyue was imprisoned in Iran on false charges of espionage. A doctoral candidate in history at Princeton University, Wang Xiyue jo...

James Pickett, "Polymaths of Islam: Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia" (Cornell UP, 2020)

21 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

James Pickett's new book, Polymaths of Islam: Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia (Cornell University Press, 2020) analyzes the social ...

H. M. E. Tagma and P. E. Lenze, "Understanding and Explaining the Iranian Nuclear 'Crisis'" (Lexington Books, 2020)

11 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How can multiple theoretical approaches yield a better understanding of international political politics? In Understanding and Explaining the Iranian...

Niloofar Haeri, "Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer and Poetry in Iran" (Stanford UP, 2020)

08 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer & Poetry in Iran (Stanford University Press, 2020) by Niloofar Haeri is a stunning and absorbing e...

Farzaneh Hemmasi, "Tehrangeles Dreaming: Intimacy and Imagination in Southern California's Iranian Pop Music" (Duke UP, 2020)

12 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Farzaneh Hemmasi is the author of Tehrangeles Dreaming: Intimacy and Imagination in Southern California's Iranian Pop Music (Duke UP, 2020). The title...

Behnaz A. Mirzai, "A History of Slavery and Emancipation in Iran, 1800-1929" (U Texas Press, 2017)

03 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Behnaz A. Mirzai’s book A History of Slavery and Emancipation in Iran, 1800-1929 (University of Texas Press, 2017) contributes to the growing field ...

M. R. Jackson Bonner, "The Last Empire of Iran" (Gorgias Press, 2020)

26 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Despite the competition it posed to the Romans’ eastern empire and the longevity it enjoyed compared to its Iranian predecessors, English-language h...

Nasser Rahmaninejad, "A Man of the Theatre: Survival as an Artist in Iran" (New Village Press, 2020)

14 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Nasser Rahmaninejad’s A Man of the Theatre: Survival as an Artist in Iran (New Village Press) provides a fascinating glimpse into the political and ...

Ibrahim Fraihat, "Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)

05 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Ibrahim Fraihat’s latest book, Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is much more than an exploration ...

Seyed Ali Alavi, "Iran and Palestine: Past, Present, and Future" (Routledge, 2019)

24 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Iran and Palestine: Past, Present and Future (Routledge, 2019), Seyed Ali Alavi (SOAS University of London) surveys the history of the relationship...

Narges Bajoghli, "Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic" (Stanford UP, 2019)

17 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In her book Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic (Stanford University Press, 2019), Narges Bajoghli takes an inside look at what ...

Afshin Matin-Asgari, "Both Eastern and Western: An Intellectual History of Iranian Modernity" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

09 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Following the Iranian Revolution of 1978—79, public and scholarly interest in Iran have skyrocketed, with a plethora of attempts seeking to understa...

Maziyar Ghiabi, "Drug Politics: Managing Disorder in the Islamic Republic of Iran" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

09 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Iran has one of the planet's highest rates of addiction. Maziyar Ghiabi's Drug Politics: Managing Disorder in the Islamic Republic of Iran (Cambridg...

Lior Sternfeld, "Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran" (Stanford UP, 2019)

03 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran (Stanford University Press, 2019) by Lior Sternfeld presents the first systematic st...

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, "Revolution and Its Discontents: Political Thought and Reform in Iran" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

08 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this new book, Revolution and its Discontents, Political Thought and Reform in Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi...

Seth J. Frantzman, "After Isis: America, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East" (Gefen, 2019)

20 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The enterprise of journalism is in crisis. Today’s journalists face accusations of “fake news” on the one hand, and harassment, arrest, and even...

Richard Foltz, "History of the Tajiks: Iranians of the East" (I.B. Tauris, 2019)

09 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In History of the Tajiks: Iranians of the East(I.B. Tauris, 2019), Richard Foltz provides a comprehensive cultural, political, and linguistic history ...

Mimi Hanaoka, "Authority and Identity in Medieval Islamic Historiography: Persian Histories from the Periphery" (Cambridge UP, 2017)

31 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do peripheral places assert the centrality of their identity? Why are fanciful events, like dreams and myths, useful narrative elements for identi...