Iran and the Muslim World: Resistance and Revolution
A leading historian of modern Iran has pulled together some of her seminal essays, written a few more, and produced a book full of insights into the Iranian Revolution. Keddie's strength is her deep knowledge of Iran, combined with a comparative perspective that allows her to reflect on how Iran's upheavals differ from those of France, Russia, and China. If you only have time for a single chapter of this fine collection, the essay on the problem of predicting revolutions should be your starting point. Nowhere else will you find chaos theory so imaginatively and usefully applied to the understanding of complex social phenomena.
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