Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

Ervand Abrahamian

Ervand Abrahamian is a CUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of History, Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is author of A History of Modern Iran [Cambridge, 2008].

MER Article

Why the Islamic Republic Has Survived

Obituaries for the Islamic Republic of Iran appeared even before it was born. In the hectic months of 1979 -- before the Islamic Republic had been officially declared -- many Iranians as well as foreigners, academics as well as journalists, participants as well as observers, conservatives as well as

Ervand Abrahamian • 10 min read

MER Article

The US Media, Samuel Huntington and September 11

Paradigms do not have to be true to become accepted wisdom. Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” is a case in point. When in 1993 Huntington first presented his notion that future international politics would be based on cultural conflicts -- especially between Islam and the West -- most commentators

Ervand Abrahamian • 7 min read

MER Article

"There Is a Feeling That the Regime Owes Something to the People"

Ahmad Ashraf is an Iranian sociologist currently teaching in the United States. He is presently working on a book with Ali Banuazizi on social classes and the state in contemporary Iran. Ervand Abrahamian and James Paul spoke with him in New York City in late October. How would you describe the reg

Ervand Abrahamian, James Paul • 17 min read

MER Article

Dorman and Farhang, The US Press and Iran

William Dorman and Mansour Farhang, The US Press and Iran: Foreign Policy and the Journalism of Deference (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987).

Ervand Abrahamian • 4 min read

MER Article

Ali Shariati: Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution

Westerners commonly perceive the Iranian Revolution as an atavistic and xenophobic movement that rejects all things modern and non-Muslim, a view reinforced by the present leaders of Iran. They claim that the revolution spearheads the resurgence of Islam, and that the revolutionary movement is an au

Ervand Abrahamian • 15 min read

MER Article

The Guerrilla Movement in Iran, 1963-1977

One crisp morning in the winter of 1971, thirteen young Iranians armed with rifles, machine guns and hand grenades, attacked the gendarmerie post in the village of Siakal on the edge of the Caspian forests. Killing three gendarmes, they tried to release two colleagues who had been detained a few day

Ervand Abrahamian • 36 min read