The Ayatollahs' Democracy An Iranian Challenge

by Majd, Hooman

• ISBN13: 9780393072594
• ISBN10: 0393072592
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-09-20
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

Hooman Majd offers a dramatic perspective on a country with global ambitions, an elaborate political culture, and enormous implications for world peace. Drawing on privileged access to the Iranian power elite, Majd argues that despite the violence of the disputed 2009 elections, a group of influential ayatollahs-including a liberal, almost-secular opposition-still believes in the Iranian republic; for them, "green" represents not a revolution but a civil rights movement, pushing the country inexorably toward democracy, albeit a particular brand of "Islamic democracy." With witty, candid, and stylishly intelligent reporting, Majd, himself the grandson of an esteemed ayatollah, introduces top-level politicians and clerics as well as ordinary people (even Jewish community leaders), all expressing pride for their ancient heritage and fierce independence from the West. In the tradition of Jon Lee Andersonrs"s The Fall of Baghdad , The Ayatollahsrs" Democracy is a powerful dispatch from a country at a historic turning point.

Table of Contents

Everything Is True; Nothing Is Permitted	p. 1
Dramatis Personae	p. 2
Act One: Everything Is True	p. 3
Entr'acte	p. 19
Act Two: Nothing Is Permitted	p. 27
Prologue	p. 41
My Name Is Green	p. 47
Democracy, Interrupted: It Takes a Thousand and One Villages (and a Mullah or Two)	p. 67
Oh Yeah? Kardeem va Shod!	p. 93
Where I Sat in Babylon	p. 129
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Iran and America in the Age of Obama	p. 161
The Good, the Bad, the Unclean	p. 211
Nothing Is True; Everything Is Forbidden	p. 255
Acknowledgments	p. 273
Index	p. 275
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.