HIS5179 HIST & POLITICS OF MOD IRAN
This course focuses on the social and cultural history and politics of modern Iran, covering the early modern formation of the country; the 19th-century encounter with the West and its economic and intellectual results, and the 20th -century struggles between despotism, theocracy, and constitutionalism in the shadow of petroleum and the Great Powers. It further covers the Islamic Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, and the current situation in Iraq. The course will emphasize conflicts facing political and social elites arising from invasions, civil war, Shi'ism and modernization.