Amin Saikal is Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Public Policy Fellow, and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University. He is the author of The Rise and Fall of the Shah (Princeton) and Modern Afghanistan. He lives in Canberra.
Scholarly portrait of a nation that resists easy categorization--and containment. . . . Useful reading for students of contemporary geopolitics, in which Iran has proven a constant, often destabilizing presence. --Kirkus Amin Saikal's lucid analysis of this sophisticated, resilient, multifaceted, sometimes alarming but always fascinating country is comprehensive, balanced, and deeply informative. While fully alive to the governing regime's shortcomings, he makes clear how dangerously counterproductive to regional peace and security is the Trump administration's unremitting determination to bring it down. --Gareth Evans, former Australian Foreign Minister and president emeritus of the International Crisis Group Timely and insightful, Iran Rising provides the only comprehensive account of a great twentieth-century revolution that was widely expected to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. But the Iranian regime has in fact endured as it has evolved, and Amin Saikal takes us through the twists and turns with a deeply informed and balanced mastery. --James P. Piscatori, coauthor of Muslim Politics A deft, accessible, and in-depth account of the Islamic Republic, Iran Rising helps us to better understand an important country that continues to defy easy classification. --Mehran Kamrava, author of The Impossibility of Palestine