[Kurzman's] book examines the Islamic revolution in the light of
social sciences. It is a valuable insight into what he considers
one of the most far-reaching events of the 20th century.--Shusha
Guppy"Times Higher Education Supplement" (11/05/2004)
Charles Kurzman has presented a meticulous anatomy of the Iranian
revolution and has dexterously treated the anomalies usually
inherent in revolutions...The author shifts through revolution
theories and shows with pages and pages of documentation and
references how they related to the Iranian revolution or missed it.
Kurzman's opus is certainly a valuable contribution to the
historiography and sociological analysis of an important revolution
of our age that led to a large scale politicization of Islam in
those parts of the world where this religion prevailed.--Syfi
Tashan "Journal of Third Word Studies "
Sociologist Kurzman addresses five familiar sets of explanations
about why the Iranian revolution took place--political,
organizational, cultural, economic, and military arguments--and
finds each valuable but flawed, offering instead an
'anti-explanation' that foregrounds anomaly and characterizes the
revolutionary moment as confusing, unstable, and as unpredictable
for participants as it is for outside observers. Despite this,
optimism is in order; there is, after all, exciting potential in
moments in which the unthinkable suddenly becomes
thinkable.--Brendan Driscoll"Booklist" (02/15/2004)
Charles Kurzman has produced the definitive account of the Islamic
Revolution. No serious historian can write about these events
without consulting his 10-page essay on available source material
in "The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran,"
ÝKurzman's¨ book examines the Islamic revolution in the light of
social sciences. It is a valuable insight into what he considers
one of the most far-reaching events of the 20th century. -- Shusha
Guppy "Times Higher Education Supplement" (11/05/2004)
When Elias Canetti, the Nobel-prize winning theorist, spoke of a
people's 'propensity to incendiarism, ' he had in mind one of the
most dangerous traits of mass gatherings: their potential for
unpredictable combustibility. Iran's Islamic revolution, like many
other uprisings, was a consummate instance of this, Kurzman argues,
and he continues in Canetti's tradition by using the Shah's
overthrow to engage in his own meditation on crowds and power.
Kurzman's investigation propelled him to the Islamic republic,
where he conducted countless interviews, in an attempt to chart the
eddies and undercurrents of one of the world's most complex and
sudden social upheavals...The result is a thought-provoking
combination of journalism and analysis that offers an atypical
juxtaposition of voices: shopkeepers, lawyers and high school
students share their views on what happened, as do academics and
policymakers.
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