Macleans:

Imagine for a moment Iran is not as it seems—that behind the thick cloak of self-professed extremisms, human rights abuses and disregard for international law is another Iranian Republic. In this version, intellectuals discuss the issues of a just society; Plato and Marx are debated and fused with the philosophy of Islamic thinkers like Al-Farabi, Rumi and Mulla Sadra; free-thinking religious scholars rub shoulders with reformists and secular intellectuals and their visions for Islamic politics rest not on blind faith, but the interplay of logic and reason.

That this Iran exists is a fact often overlooked in debates over Iran’s nuclear program or the brutality of its regimes. But this more accurate Iran is the one Laura Secor explores in her first book, Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran. By Secor’s accounting, Iran has never been the singularly theocratic state its hardliners and foreign critics wish it to be. It is an experiment that has been taking shape for centuries. The 1979 Islamic revolution ushered in a new era. But its outcome remains uncertain: Even after nearly four decades, the struggle for Iran’s soul rages.

Secor focuses on this tumultuous period. The revolution, she points out, was never about clerical rule. The wide-ranging popular support Ayatollah Khomeini commanded in 1979 was the product of a unified opposition to the excesses of the Western-backed Shah. Leftists and secularists, moderate clerics and religious intellectuals all gathered around a persuasive central personality. What came after the revolution took many by surprise. Leftist purges in 1981 that left an estimated 2,665 people dead were the first sign that things were not going as many had hoped...

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