Iran's Influence

Reviews

' This is a sharp, judicious, caring, and competent scholar activist who has consistently crossed borders to carve new territories of perception and responsibility.' - Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University, New York

'As the crisis between Iran and the USA intensifies, Elaheh Rostami Povey's new book makes essential reading. Its vivid accounts of the Islamic republic's relations with key countries across the Middle East offers us the chance to understand the region in a new way. In contrast to the crude caricatures in the Western media, Rostami Povey shows us, in all it complex reality, how the people of Iran and the Arab world themselves understand and make sense of their own situation.' - Dr Stephanie Cronin, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford

'Elaheh Rostami-Povey ‘s well researched and powerfully argued study is an insightful exploration of sensitive issues - ones that we usually only encounter in media sound bites. This work challenges much of the current discourse on the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Western media. It places evolving Iranian foreign and regional policies since 1979 in their proper historical and intellectual context. It combines new scholarship on the popular perception in the Arab street of Iran’s foreign policies with an engaging style and makes an important contribution to our knowledge on regional dimensions of the Palestine-Israel conflict.' - Professor Nur Masalha

'Elaheh Rostami-Povey has written an unusual book: it discusses geopolitics and regional intra-state relations, yet it does so with an eye to the ways in which the peoples of the region view these relations; it generously gives space and room for the voices of the people in Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Tehran, and Ramallah to be heard, but it does so critically if sympathetically; it is supremely sensitive to the concerns and suffering of ordinary people of the Middle East, but it situates the everyday in a broader historical narrative which does not lose sight of transnational power structures. In short, this book provides a clear-eyed, fascinating, and politically committed rebuttal to so much of the vacuous mainstream punditry about Iran's position and actions in the region.' - Laleh Khalili, SOAS

'This book provides a clear and concise overview of the recent history of Iran in terms of religion, national and international politics and internal alliances, divisions and oppositional movements. The work is well researched by someone who is familiar with the country and its people and knows the politics intimately; the material is presented clearly and is comprehensive and well argued. If you could read only one book on Iran, then surely this would be the one' - Professor the Baroness Afshar OBE, AcSS, University of York

'A fascinating contribution to the debate. Rostami-Povey's extensive interviews in the region sheds valuable light on the continuing appeal of Iran on the Arab street, its causes, consequences and implications.' - Ali M Ansari, Professor of Iranian History, St. Andrew's University

'A fascinating study of the evolution of the Islamic Republican regime in Iran, of its complex and increasingly conflictual relationship with popular and social movements, and of its impact on the wider Middle East. This fine product of Elaheh Rostami-Povey's critical scholarship is essential reading for anyone who refuses to settle for mythological and demonizing representations of post-revolutionary Iran.' - Alex Callinicos, Professor of European Studies, King's College London