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Ramin Jahanbegloo turns to ancient philosophy as an antidote to contemporary authoritarianism in Iran.

From the rule of Cyrus the Great to the present day, Iran has been plagued by a recurrent syndrome of tyranny. For Ramin Jahanbegloo, the cure for this persistent cycle lies in a reengagement with the idea of a beautiful society. He presents beauty as an antidote to authoritarianism and as a methodology of freedom: one first taught by the philosophers of ancient Greece, who bound beauty and goodness together in the principle of kalokagathia, and later revived by the German Enlightenment.
A work of hope and faith in the people of Iran, this provocative and timely intervention from the author of The Idea of Persia turns to the past in order to imagine a way forward. Drawing on Hegel, Schiller, Arendt, Camus, and more, Jahanbegloo lays out a vision of how Iran and Iranians might come to live in beautiful freedom.

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, Iranian intellectuals have been preoccupied by issues of political and social reform, Iran's relation with the modern West, and autocracy, or arbitrary rule. Drawing from a close reading of a broad array of primary sources, this book offers a thematic account of the Iranian intelligentsia from the Constitutional movement of 1905 to the post-1979 revolution.

Ali Gheissari shows how in Iran, as in many other countries, intellectuals have been the prime mediators between the forces of tradition and modernity and have contributed significantly to the formation of the modern Iranian self image. His analysis of intellectuals' response to a number of fundamental questions, such as nationalism, identity, and the relation between Islam and modern politics, sheds new light on the factors that led to the Iranian Revolution—the twentieth century's first major departure from Western political ideals—and helps explain the complexities surrounding the reception of Western ideologies in the Middle East.

Thousands of Iranians fled their homeland when the 1978–1979 revolution ended the fifty-year reign of the Pahlavi Dynasty. Some fled to Europe and Canada, while others settled in the United States, where anti-Iranian sentiment flared as the hostage crisis unfolded. For those who chose America, Texas became the fourth-largest settlement area, ultimately proving to be a place of paradox for any Middle Easterner in exile. Iranians in Texas culls data, interviews, and participant observations in Iranian communities in Houston, Dallas, and Austin to reveal the difficult, private world of cultural pride, religious experience, marginality, culture clashes, and other aspects of the lives of these immigrants.

Examining the political nature of immigration and how the originating and receiving countries shape the prospects of integration, Mohsen Mobasher incorporates his own experience as a Texas scholar born in Iran. Tracing current anti-Muslim sentiment to the Iranian hostage crisis, two decades before 9/11, he observes a radically negative shift in American public opinion that forced thousands of Iranians in the United States to suddenly be subjected to stigmatization and viewed as enemies. The book also sheds light on the transformation of the Iranian family in exile and some of the major challenges that second-generation Iranians face in their interactions with their parents.

Bringing to life a unique population in the context of global politics, Iranians in Texas overturns stereotypes while echoing diverse voices.

While many previous books have probed the causes of Iran's Islamic Revolution of 1979, few have focused on the power of religion in shaping a national identity over the decades leading up to it. Islamism and Modernism captures the metamorphosis of the Islamic movement in Iran, from encounters with Great Britain and the United States in the 1920s through twenty-first-century struggles between those seeking to reform Islam's role and those who take a hardline defensive stance.

Capturing the views of four generations of Muslim activists, Farhang Rajahee describes how the extremism of the 1960s brought more confidence to concerned Islam-minded Iranians and radicalized the Muslim world while Islamic alternatives to modernity were presented. Subsequent ideologies gave rise to the revolution, which in turn has fed a restructuring of Islam as a faith rather than as an ideology.

Presenting thought-provoking discussions of religious thinkers such as Ha'eri, Burujerdi, Bazargan, and Shari'ati, along with contemporaries such as Kadivar, Soroush, and Shabestari, the author sheds rare light on the voices fueling contemporary Islamic thinking in Iran. A comprehensive study of these interwoven aspects of politics, religion, society, and identity, Islamism and Modernism offers crucial new insight into the aftermath of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution fought one hundred years ago—and its ramifications for the newest generation to face the crossroads of modernity and Islamic discourse in modern Iran today.

Journalist Jonathan Cook explores Israel’s key role in persuading the Bush administration to invade Iraq, as part of a plan to remake the Middle East, and their joint determination to isolate Iran and prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons that might rival Israel’s own.
 
This concise and clearly argued book makes the case that Israel's desire to be the sole regional power in the Middle East neatly chimed with Bush’s objectives in the “war on terror”.
 
Examining a host of related issues, from the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to the role of Big Oil and the demonisation of the Arab world, Cook argues that the current chaos in the Middle East is the objective of the Bush administration – a policy that is equally beneficial to Israel.