Iranian American writer and scholar Hamid Dabashi wrote Iran: A People Interrupted amid the political fallout following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New Yorkâhis adopted cityâin 2001.
As US President George W. Bush declared a âwar on terrorâ and named Iran as part of an âaxis of evilâ that supported terrorism, Dabashi offered an insiderâs insight into the Iranian psyche.
The book explores more than 200 years of Iranâs cultural history. It shows how Iranian poets, writers, and thinkers have always reflected the peopleâs long struggle against both foreign and domestic tyranny.
This artistic heritage explains the profoundly anti-colonial ideology of a twenty-first century Iran determined to forge modernity on its own terms.
The author weaves in his own stories of growing up under the Shah of Iran, and the Islamic Revolution that replaced the royal Shah with the religious Ayatollah.
An outspoken political commentator, Dabashi divides fellow scholars and commentators with this book. Praised as âhighly originalâ by some and dubbed âarrogantâ by others, it remains an important contribution to understanding a country never far from the world stage.