Iran: The Crisis of Democracy: From the Exile of Reza Shah to the Fall of Musaddiq

In 1941 the British and the Russians occupied Iran. The autocratic Reza Shah was forced to abdicate under British pressure and there followed one of the most turbulent periods in modern Iranian political history. Iran became the scene of political turmoil involving numerous factions and organizations whose ideological convictions ranged from the communist left to the religious right.

This book, the first detailed study to appear in English, provides dramatic new detail on the in-fighting and intrigue which characterized the period. It also seeks to explain why Iran's only protracted experiment with parliamentary democracy was doomed to failure. The authoritarianism and absence of a real civil society which flowed from the failures of this period help to explain the continuing problems which Iran today faces. This study is unrivalled in its scope and depth of  treatment of the subject, as well as its extensive use of the source material in Persian and other languages.