The Ayatollahs' Democracy: An Iranian Challenge

by Hooman Majd

Overview

"One of America's most astute revealers of Iranian culture and identity."-Reza Aslan, The Atlantic

Hailed as one of the year's best foreign policy books, Hooman Majd's latest offers dramatic perspective on a country with global ambitions, an elaborate political culture, and policies with enormous implications for world peace. Drawing on privileged access to the Iranian power elite, Majd "gives a harrowing description of the aftermath of the 2009 presidential elections in Iran" (Haleh Esfandiari). This "nimble take on Iran's fraught political landscape" (Kirkus Reviews) "sounds a dire warning to those in the West who want a democratic Iran. . . . Let us hope the President is listening" (Reza Aslan, The Atlantic).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393340631
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/12/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	282
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Born in Tehran but educated in the West, Hooman Majd is the author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ (an Economist and Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2008) and The Ayatollahs' Democracy: An Iranian Challenge. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

"Hooman Majd’s penetrating new book, The Ayatollahs’ Democracy, exposes Iran's innermost political machinations. Combining analytical agility, journalistic talent, the prose of a seasoned writer, Majd draws deft analogies between events in Iran and events in American history, and untangles the many factions and alliances that run Iran's enigmatic government. Best of all, Majd breaks down complex issues into understandable pieces, without sacrificing complexity. A must read."

Firoozeh Dumas

"Regardless what you happen to think of Majd's political analysis (I happen to mostly agree with it), he has the most detailed and gripping reporting of the Iranian elections to date…. I encourage the White House to get a copy of Majd's book. And for Dish readers to pre-order it."

"The Daily Dish" - The Atlantic.com - Patrick Appel

"The first fifty pages of this book would make a Sundance-winning film, but the meat of the book explores, in vividly readable style, the evolving concept of Islamic democracy, the widespread support for nuclear power, and the historical pride and resistance to western intervention. A well-connected insider with the eye of a master psychologist, Majd gives us a nuanced, in-depth portrait of a country both far more sophisticated and far less rigid than western policymakers have yet appreciated."

Lesley Hazleton

"No writer knows more about modern Iran than Hooman Majd. Nor does any other commentator write more cogently, or more beautifully, about this complex and sometimes opaque culture. The Ayatollahs’ Democracy establishes Majd as the go-to guy for understanding Iran and Iranian politics."

Reza Aslan

"Its insights may startle Americans who think of Iran purely as a fundamentalist Islamic state."

Time

"Like a nonfiction novel, going beyond hard facts to enter people's consciousness."

The New York Times Book Review - Marc Tracy

"Its insights may startle Americans who think of Iran purely as a fundamentalist Islamic state."

Time

Iranian-born journalist Majd (The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran, 2008) offers a nimble take on Iran's fraught political landscape.

"Massive fraud," writes the author, accompanied the official announcement of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "landslide re-election" against rival Mir Hossein Mousavi in June 2009, giving the lie to the so-called Green Movement of reform. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, validated the results shortly thereafter by declaring a triumph of "religious democracy on display for the whole world to witness." People were stunned, yet the Islamic Republic has survived for 30 years and is "not a form of government to write off just yet." How to account for its resiliency and even public support? Majd, an Iranian diplomat's son who was largely educated in America, has impeccable connections and is able to infiltrate the official and nonofficial camps fluidly. In somewhat erratically organized but readable essays, he is determined to get at theoghdeh, or complexes, that underscore the Iranian psyche. When angry Iranians took to the street to protest the election results, the delighted Western media proclaimed the uprising "a rejection of the Islamic regime altogether," thus playing into the hands of Ahmadinejad's supporters, who depicted the movement as a foreign-inspired plot to overthrow the government. First and foremost, the Iranians reject foreign influence and deeply revere democratic ideals. Abrasive and irreverent, with humble provincial roots as the son of a blacksmith, Ahmadinejad has endeared himself to the masses by his muscling of the elite. Majd looks at Iran's grandiose aspirations abroad, as well its as pernicious support of Hezbollah; the evolving relationship with President Obama; the tenacity of Iranian Jews who insist on staying despite Ahmadinejad's poisonous anti-Semitic statements; and the power of the mullahs.

Useful survey of the roiling state of recent Iranian affairs.

Kirkus Reviews