America and Iran

Selected as one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year by the New York TimesIn recent times, the United States and Iran have seemed closer to war than peace, but that is not where their story began. When America was in its infancy, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams turned to the history of the Persian Empire as they looked for guidance on how to run their new country. And in the following century, Iranian newspapers heralded America as an ideal that their own government might someday emulate. How, then, did the two nations become the adversaries that they are today?In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of America and Iran over three centuries. Drawing on years of research conducted in both countries – including access to Iranian government archives rarely available to Western scholars – he leads us through the four seasons of US-Iranian relations: from the spring of mutual fascination, where Iran, sick of duplicitous Britain and Russia interfering in its affairs, sought a relationship with the United States, to the long, dark winter of hatred that we are yet to see end. A revealing account, America and Iran lays bare when, where and how it all went wrong – and why it didn’t have to be this way.

‘Delightfully readable, genuinely informative and impressively literate.’, ‘Ghazvinian recounts a tragic story of Iranian overtures spurned by Americans in cahoots with their Israeli and Saudi allies… Ghazvinian has a witty style.’, ‘This book presents the long, troubled relationship between the United States and Iran in a breezy and supple narrative, replete with poignant anecdotes, to posit convincingly that “antagonism between Iran and America is wholly unnecessary”.’, ‘a stimulating and well-written study of one of the key relationships in today’s world.’, ‘a magnificent, bold, wide-reaching and potentially significant book on the thorny subject of Iranian-American relations… throws fresh historical light on the original exchanges between Americans and Iranians, and shows us fascinating historical characters, brought vividly to life with pen portraits and amusing anecdotes… The framing of the book into four seasons, ending with winter, is a stroke of genius as it lends to [Ghazvinian’s] overall argument a poignant resonance: there are better days ahead… This is history as history should be written: accessible, humane, thoughtful, insightful and in places extremely funny… someone just has to get a copy of this book to the White House, fast.’

John Ghazvinian is a historian at the University of Pennsylvania. He was born in Iran, raised in London and Los Angeles, and has a doctorate in history from the University of Oxford. He is the author of Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil and he has written for the Sunday Times, New Statesman, Slate and The Nation. He lives in Philadelphia.