Iran: Dictatorship and Development

The classic study of Pahlavi-era Iran, written on the eve of the 1979 revolution

Originally completed mere months before the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Fred Halliday’s study of twentieth-century Iran was not only incredibly timely but a deeply researched, thought-provoking work. It masterfully surveys the country’s uneven capitalist development, state-building and class structure, security and military apparatus, dissent and opposition movements, and foreign relations. Even decades later it remains among the most sophisticated and compelling analyses of this period of Iranian history. Halliday persuasively argues against crude interpretations of the Pahlavi regime as an enlightened and modernising monarchy or merely a dependent client state. Instead, he contends that to make sense of the Pahlavi regime and its vulnerabilities, it is crucial to understand the dialectic of dictatorship, development and the imperial geopolitics of the global Cold War.

This new edition also includes six of Halliday’s essays on the Islamic Republic, demonstrating how his thinking on Iran and the revolution evolved over time.

Fred Halliday was Professor Emeritus of International Relations at the London School of Economics. A Middle East specialist, he authored many articles and books, including Arabia Without Sultans, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, The Middle East in International Relations and Revolution and World Politics.

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi is Senior Lecturer in the Modern History of the Middle East at the University of York and author of Revolution and its Discontents: Political Thought and Reform in Iran.