Iranian American writer and scholar Hamid Dabashi wrote Iran: A People Interrupted amid the political fallout following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York—his adopted city—in 2001.

As US President George W. Bush declared a “war on terror” and named Iran as part of an “axis of evil” that supported terrorism, Dabashi offered an insider’s insight into the Iranian psyche.

The book explores more than 200 years of Iran’s cultural history. It shows how Iranian poets, writers, and thinkers have always reflected the people’s long struggle against both foreign and domestic tyranny.

This artistic heritage explains the profoundly anti-colonial ideology of a twenty-first century Iran determined to forge modernity on its own terms.

The author weaves in his own stories of growing up under the Shah of Iran, and the Islamic Revolution that replaced the royal Shah with the religious Ayatollah.

An outspoken political commentator, Dabashi divides fellow scholars and commentators with this book. Praised as “highly original” by some and dubbed “arrogant” by others, it remains an important contribution to understanding a country never far from the world stage.