Customer Reviews

Iran: A People Interrupted

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have ready many books on Iran and the Middle East. I had a difficult time finishing this one. There is a lot of grand standing and name-calling in this book, but in the end it is not clear what the point is. Yes there are facts about Iranian history here, but those are in any other standard book on Iran. Beyond that this is an angry book which is tedious to read and leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Mr. Dabashi provides an account of Iranian "national" and political history beside a history of literature. I enjoyed this method.

This book would seem to be a very good platform for stimulating debate but, the vast majority of the authors contentions are contradictory.

For example, he states that after the Constitutional Revolution there were three primary political "streams" in Iranian culture which were inseperable and applying them as labels to players was "lame" and "lazy". He then goes on to apply individual labels to key players and outline the distinct trajectories of each "stream" over the course of Iranian history.

Much later, he proclaims the end of Islamic Ideology..and then goes on to show how radical clerics tightened their grip on Iran under Ahmadinejad. hmm. End indeed. It could be that this is a play on "The End of History"...and the great accuracy of that piece of work but, only time will tell.

He suggests that some folks who wrote a paper he disagreed with should have been tried by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. For writing a paper. And then laments the brutal, illegitmate theocracy in Iran. Oh the tyranny.

These are just a few examples, the book is riddled with these contradictory arguments. I think this stems from the fact that the author is deeply entrenched in domestic American politics and it permeates this book. He essentially devotes the opening two chapters and a major portion of the closing chapter to positioning himself within the American political spectrum. (aka, the sections have little to do with Iran or Iranian history).

The clincher for me though is his blatant dismissal of any person who does not agree with him. Any intellectual, no matter their background, he disagrees with it instantly labelled a "neocon". The author repeatedly laments the uselessness of "inorganic expatriate intellectuals"...which, of course, he is. Right? Afterall, he admits he has given up on the reformers, didn't vote last time around, and has essentially thrown in with Ahmadinejad.

I would be hard pressed to cite this book in a paper or recommend it to a friend.

This is not a well written book. It lacks clarity and is tedious to read. It also says little that is new. The one thing that distinguishes this book and makes it stand out is the hatred that Mr. Dabashi shows for virtually everyone. For those interested in mud slinging this book will not disappoint. It is at its best when Mr. Dabashi rants against his colleagues--often unfairly. I found Mr. Dabashi's langauge and name-calling appalling. If you want to learn about Iran skip this book, there are many more worthwhile books on the market that educate about Iran rather than settle score with people that the author does not like--which in this case is everyone.

Mr. Dabashi has set out to write a new history of Iran, explaining the country, its history, and its politics in a whole new way. But by the end the book is a rehash of all too familiar anti-American rhetoric. So dominant is this anti-Americanism that Mr. Dabashi even attacks Iran's pro-democracy voices, accusing them of serving the neo-con agenda. In other words, Iranians should bag democracy to avoid advertising Bush's agenda. The book is full this sort of shocking logic. Readers will also find Dabashi's personal attacks on other scholars distasteful and distracting. This is not the groundbreaking book on Iran that it claims to be. Recent books by Moaveni, Molavi, Gheissari and Nasr, Chubin, and other like them, educate just as well, and more important, are more enjoyable to read.

I approached this book without any preconceived ideas or expectations, just wanting to learn more about another country in the Middle East. So it was with some surprise that I discovered the intense emotions and outspoken "ad hominem" judgments of Dabashi toward a whole array of individuals in politics and literature. As a US academic, Dabbashi is unusual in his willingness to indulge himself in frequent emotional outbursts while developing highly theoretical analyses based on extensive research.

While I am impressed by the immense depth and detail of his knowledge and research, I can only lament the absolutely TURGID writing style that Dabashi employs when dealing with literature, religion, or politics. As a fellow PhD and native English-speaker, I consider myself fluent in academese, but there were whole pages that were just unfathomable to me.

This turgidity might be acceptable as evidence of scholarship in fields far removed from my own, if the style of writing had been carefully copy-edited. However, the grammar and spelling in this book demonstrate many basic faults that only made me smile when they appear right in the middle of a multi-clause 12-line sentence. Moreover, what is it about the word "myriad" that causes Dabashi to use it correctly as an adjective on one page and then incorrectly as a noun on the next four pages? And what is this predilection for the word "horrid?" Only sensitive old ladies talk about things being "horrid."

Regarding more substantive concerns, I do understand the author's deep and persistent resentment against colonialism and the pernicious ways in which it interrupts the natural evolution of any people, but why does Dabashi never hold his fellow Iranians to account for a self-perpetuating history of exploitation by weak and ineffectual monarchs or brutal despots? How many centuries does it take for any people to stand on their own feet?

It is also disingenuous of Dabashi to keep attributing all the ills of his country to colonialism when Iran itself had its own empire. That fact is never mentioned. Moreover, geography is inescapable: Iran lies at a crossroads of cultures and trade and could, on another trajectory, have developed immense wealth from this one accident of nature which, instead, is viewed as a cause of its downfall and subjugation.

Behind Dabashi's quest for "anti-colonial modernity" is the inescapable fact that many Iranians, including the author, have found too comfortable a home in the US where they can rant and rave with impunity. Thus, Dabashi has become part of what he (most improbably) calls "inorganic intellectuals." When I first read this oft-repeated term, I thought it referred to people who were dead and buried, ie. inorganic, especially as they are linked to a quest for "phantom liberties." But then I understood that Dabashi was really describing isolated individuals who are not organized into any group that might offer resistance of any kind of sociopolitical oppression.

Despite this most oppressive writing style, which is the worst that I have ever encountered, I pressed on through the book right through to the end, even reading all the Endnotes. My interest and attention were sustained by rare but wonderful passages where Dabashi becomes himself and stops being the "big professor" using "big words." Then his accounts of lived history are riveting, bringing to life the experience of revolution and abrupt changes of political leadership. I also enjoyed, in a more subversive way, his many diatribes and unrestrained personal invective against individuals whose ideas he finds unacceptable. If only the rest of us could frame our scholarly criticisms in such terms, it would be so emotionally liberating but would probably get us fired for "conduct unbecoming."

So, if you want to get some idea about the richness of Iranian history and culture and insights into its pretensions as a cosmopolitan culture of the world, then this book is for you. If you are not up for the struggle to understand page after page of pure jargon, then give this one a miss.

...from all the numerous hatreds and paranoid ideas pounding in his head and pouring out onto the pages of his articles and books.

Hamid Dabashi (Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University) purports his recent IRAN: A PEOPLE INTERRUPTED to be a history of modern Iran, from the late-18th century Qajar period to the present. Once you start reading his insufferable rant, however, you'll find it is less about Iranian history (something which Dabashi considers to be only a "myth" anyway) as it is about Dabashi's self-indulgent "ax to grind."

Dabashi is a stereotypical "lefty loon" (as an Iranian friend describes him) academician of the sort that Fox News loves to present on one of their talking head programs for public shock and amusement. He goes round and round in this book alternating his paeans to Che Guevara, French cinema, and his wife (obscure poet Golbarg Bashi), with childish and paranoid invective for almost all of his colleagues and predecessors who've written on Iranian history and culture; most of whom, according to the esteemed professor, are either "pestiferous orientalists" or "useless Lipstick Jihadists" (a snide reference to Azadeh Moaveni) --and all in service of America's "neo-cons." Dabashi definitely holds a special (and quite obsessive) contempt for Azar Nafisi. He dubs the author a "native informer and colonial agent," claiming her book READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN was a Pentagon psy-ops project intended to ease the American public into support for an invasion and occupation of Iran! (Are you getting the idea on this Dabashi fella by now?)

If you subscribe to Dabashi's post-colonialist/post-Marxist blah-blah worldview, then you will truly have a good old time reading this book. But if you are quite sane and desire to learn more about Iran's modern history, take my sincere advice and avoid this book.

Dabashi writes beautifully. There is no denying that. The narrative he utilizes seamlessly juxtaposes the literary, cinematic, and cultural history of contemporary Iran by contextualizing it vis-à-vis the political vicissitudes of recent Iranian history. However, Dabashi's greatest shortcoming can be traced to his training--he is not a political scientist and, as such, discredits many of his arguments by engaging in the type of polemics he so often criticizes others for. these arguments can be made without resorting to ad hominem attacks. They should stand on their merits, not by the ability to attack the character of another author. Reviews which assail Dabashi simply because he is of a different ideological persuasion should be dismissed out-of-hand. They are hack polemicists themselves without formal training in anything. Judging by some of the reviews, most of them have not even read his book. As a scholar of comparative literature, though, Dabashi is too often polemic. He is unable to separate ideology from his critical impulses. The book is more than worth reading, however. It stimulates discussion, provokes thought, is well written, and makes many valid points. Again, however, Dabashi compounds his laudable efforts by criticizing almost anything that is different from his view of the past and present. He resorts to criticizing, of all things, Wimbledon (the tennis tournament held annually in the UK). This is bordering inanity. Surprisingly, many of his political arguments are right on point. What problematizes, but not dooms, this book ultimately is his unremitting attack on superfluous and at best peripheral issues. Some of the authors he ridicules, such as Reza Aslan (for suggesting an Islamic Reformation), end up proving the points he was criticizing Aslan for in the first place. Dabashi argues that Shi'i Islam is politically bankrupt because its existence is contingent upon a revolutionary and activist political status. Once it attains power, it has subverted its core principles. Aslan ends with a similar conclusion but his narrative is different. Aslan may call it
"reformation" but semantics aside, it means the obsolescence of the religious in the political. Nevertheless, it is a very interesting read and I highly recommend it.

This is a waste of time of readers, written by a Leftie loon and some one who writes over his hatred of the US and the Iranian history.... This book is written by a pro-mullahocracy author who pretends to be an area expert. He holds the same view that most Iranian rgime officials hold: Israel is a religious state run by the jews and it dominates the US policies. Ridiculous book and not worthy of wasting the time and money. Regret borrowing it from the university library though.

Not Recommended!

To Mr. Dabashi humanity is divided into theoretically divided colonial, anti-colonial, bourgeoisie, etc. Thus his assertions fall within confined parameters defined by his ideological underpinning. To place this in reference, simply go to page 78 where Mr. Dabashi either chooses to ignore or is ignorant of liberal traditions in history of the United States. The American Revolution/Independence took its ideals from the French enlightenment. The founding fathers of the American civilization, though landed gentry, were no capitalists in a modern sense (in Mr. Dabashi's time frame of 1900s capitalists). To Hamid democratic institutions are simply products of capitalist machinery and thus deny the rest of the world liberty. This type of oversimplification through bombastic political statements defines the central character of his writing style. Overall the book shows some knowledge of Iranian history lined with insufficient historical knowledge about others, followed by political rant. Although I must confess I am a little puzzled by this because the author does live in the United States and is no six-pack Joe. Afterall he teaches at a prominent university. Thus the book gets two stars which is the average of four on Iranian history and zero on the plain that, according to Hamid, purportedly influences it, that is Europe and the United States.

I hope I have been helpful in your decision to read this book.

I don't know where to start with this book.

This book was absolutely terrible. First of all lets look at the writing style.

Mr. Dabashi's writing style consists of stringing together as many large words as he can fit into a run-on sentence. He is so busy trying to sound intelligent that he ends up saying nothing at all.

Here is an example of one incredibly long and nonsensical sentence:

"Promoting a categorical conception of Iran, as it has been formed by European Orientalists and now continued by Iranian studies scholars, not only glosses over its subnationalized categories and components, but also systematically distorts the historical integration of Iran into its larger regional geopolitics-from southern Asia to North Africa, from central Asia to sub-Saharan Africa-including Indian, Arab, Turkinsh and many other cultural elements as the active ingredients of its syncretic disposition".

You get that? Didn't this book have an editor?

Also, the author repeatedly insults his fellow Iranian-American academics while lavishing praise on himself and the Mullah's in Iran.

This book is incredibly bad. If you want to read elegant and poetic writing about Iran, read any book by Abbas Milani.

This book has no message and no point.