FULLY UPDATED THIRD EDITION, NOW WITH NEW POSTSCRIPT BY ALI ANSARI If you were to read only one book on present-day Iran you could not do better than this Ervand Abrahamian, Times Higher Education For some 40 years the Islamic Republic has resisted widespread condemnation, sanctions, and sustained attacks by Iraq in an eight-year war. Many policy-makers today share a weary wish that Iran would somehow just disappear as a problem. But with Irans continuing commitment to a nuclear programme and its reputation as a trouble-maker in Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon and elsewhere, this is unlikely any time soon. An unending stream of assertions about the revolutions finally running down continue to be defied by events, and Irans institutions are still formidable. This is the definitive history of this subject, from one of the worlds principal experts.