@article{1478537,
      author = {Kurzman, Charles, },
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1478537},
      title = {The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran /},
      abstract = {The shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, would remain on  the throne for the foreseeable future: This was the firm  conclusion of a top-secret CIA analysis issued in October  1978. One hundred days later the shah--despite his massive  military, fearsome security police, and superpower support  was overthrown by a popular and largely peaceful  revolution. But the CIA was not alone in its myopia, as  Charles Kurzman reveals in this penetrating work; Iranians  themselves, except for a tiny minority, considered a  revolution inconceivable until it actually occurred.  Revisiting the circumstances surrounding the fall of the  shah, Kurzman offers rare insight into the nature and  evolution of the Iranian revolution and into the ultimate  unpredictability of protest movements in general. As one  Iranian recalls, "The future was up in the air." Through  interviews and eyewitness accounts, declassified security  documents and underground pamphlets, Kurzman documents the  overwhelming sense of confusion that gripped  pre-revolutionary Iran, and that characterizes major  protest movements. His book provides a striking picture of  the chaotic conditions under which Iranians acted,  participating in protest only when they expected others to  do so too, the process approaching critical mass in  unforeseen and unforeseeable ways. Only when large numbers  of Iranians began to "think the unthinkable," in the words  of the U.S. ambassador, did revolutionary expectations  become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A corrective to 20-20  hindsight, this book reveals shortcomings of analyses that  make the Iranian revolution or any major protest movement  seem inevitable in retrospect. Reviews of this book:  Sociologist Kurzman addresses five familiar sets of  explanations about why the Iranian revolution took  place--political, organizational, cultural, economic, and  military arguments--and finds each valuable but flawed,  offering instead an 'anti-explanation' that foregrounds  anomaly and characterizes the revolutionary moment as  confusing, unstable, and as unpredictable for participants  as it is for outside observers. Despite this, optimism is  in order; there is, after all, exciting potential in  moments in which the unthinkable suddenly becomes  thinkable.--Brendan Driscoll, BooklistReviews of this book:  When Elias Canetti, the Nobel-prize winning theorist, spoke  of a people's 'propensity to incendiarism,' he had in mind  one of the most dangerous traits of mass gatherings: their  potential for unpredictable combustibility. Iran's Islamic  revolution, like many other uprisings, was a consummate  instance of this, Kurzman argues, and he continues in  Canetti's tradition by using the Shah's overthrow to engage  in his own meditation on crowds and power. Kurzman's  investigation propelled him to the Islamic republic, where  he conducted countless interviews, in an attempt to chart  the eddies and undercurrents of one of the world's most  complex and sudden social upheavals.The result is a  thought-provoking combination of journalism and analysis  that offers an atypical juxtaposition of voices:  shopkeepers, lawyers and high school students share their  views on what happened, as do academics and  policymakers.--Publishers WeeklyIn the world of politics, a  true revolution is the perfect storm - rare and uniquely  destructive. Can the social scientist comprehend and  perhaps even predict the course of such a complex  phenomenon? Charles Kurzman takes a cool, dispassionate  look at the many explanations of the Iranian revolution and  finds them inadequate. Drawing on an impressive range of  original research, he argues that mass revolutionary  movements become viable suddenly - and unpredictably - as  perceptions of potential success acquire popular  acceptance. This book is a major addition to the literature  on the Iranian revolution - and revolution in  general.--Gary Sick, former member of the National Security  Council staff, and Adjunct Professor of},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674039834},
      recid = {1478537},
      pages = {1 online resource (304 p.)},
}