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Overviews. Iranian culture and South Asia, 1500-1900 / Juan R.I. Cole -- Beyond translation : interactions between English and Persian poetry / Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak -- Turk, Persian, and Arab : changing relationships between tribes and state in Iran and along its frontiers / Thomas J. Barfield -- The Safavid, Qajar, and Pahlavi Periods. The early Safavids and their cultural interactions with surrounding states / Abolala Soudavar -- Suspicion, fear, and admiration : pre-nineteenth-century Iranian views of the English and the Russians / Rudi Matthee -- The quest for the secret of strength in Iranian nineteenth-century travel literature : rethinking tradition in the Safarnameh / Monica M. Ringer -- Cultures of Iranianness : the evolving polemic of Iranian nationalism / Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet -- Foreign education, the women's press, and the discourse of scientific domesticity in early-twentieth-century Iran / Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi -- Culture in the Islamic republic in relation to the world. International connections of the Iranian women's movement / Nayereh Tohidi -- The presentation of the "self" and the "other" in postrevolutionary Iranian school textbooks / Golnar Mehran -- Cinematic exchange relations : Iran and the West / Hamid Naficy -- Political-cultural relations with the Muslim world. The failed pan-Islamic program of the Islamic republic : views of the liberal reformers of the religious "semi-opposition" / Wilfried Buchta -- Revolutionary Iran and Egypt : exporting inspirations and anxieties / Asef Bayat and Bahman Baktiari -- The Iranian revolution and changes in Islamism in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan / Vali Nasr -- The politics of Iran's international relations. Iran's foreign policy : a revolution in transition / Gary Sick

In the thirty-two years from 1979 to 2011 there have been numerous mass movements in Iran and several Arab countries that have overthrown or threatened rulers who seemed secure for several decades. By September 2011, the shah of Iran and the presidents of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya had been overthrown; of those, only the anti-Qaddafi revolt had outside (NATO) help. Major popular movements had also threatened the rulers of Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria. Iran had seen the massive Green Movement in 2009, aimed primarily at fraud in that year's presidential elections. Among the questions that emerge regarding these movements are the following: Why did they arise when they did? Why were they not predicted? How much influence did one or more of these movements have on the others? Why were some movements successful and others, thus far, not? Some of these questions will demand long study and analysis, which may not lead to a consensus. Here will be a preliminary brief discussion of a few of them, with stress on the question of influence.

Cyrus Schayegh's "'Seeing Like a State': An Essay on the Historiography of Modern Iran" tries to show how historians of the Pahlavi era "have been gripped by the image of an omnipotent, completely autonomous state and how, each one . . . turned this image into what I call methodological statism" (p. 38). He discusses critically several works by historians and political scientists while mentioning more favorably a few works by anthropologists and sociologists and then indicates what he considers a better approach to Pahlavi history. Although I agree with some of his criticisms and am glad to see a serious discussion of historiography, I think he overstates the sins of historians and fails to distinguish between historians and political scientists, whose discipline leads them to emphasize the state.

Throughout the region, recent advances in family planning, women's health, and female education and labor force participation have led to greater and more equal participation by women in national life.

Ironically, the title of my 1987 World Policy Journal article, "Iranian Imbroglios: Who's Irrational?" could serve as well today, 21 years later, for another essay on U.S. policy in Iran. My original effort noted the folly of U.S. government hubris—believing it could maneuver the Iranian revolutionary leadership to act in American interests in the Cold War against the Soviets. Seeing all international issues in terms of the Cold War contributed to our trying to find ruling "moderates" in the Iran-Contra scandal, and also to our subsequent backing of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War.