Abbas Malekzadeh Milani (Persian: عباس ملک‌زاده میلانی; born 1949) is an Iranian-American historian, educator, and author. Milani is a visiting professor of political science, and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University. He is also a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.[1][2] In Milani's book, Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran (2004, Mage Publications), he has found evidence that Persian modernism dates back to more than 1,000 years ago.[3]

Abbas Milani
عباس ملک‌زاده میلانی
Milani in 2010
Born
Abbas Malekzadeh Milani
عباس ملک‌زاده میلانی

1949 (age 74–75)
CitizenshipIranian, American
Spouse(s)Fereshteh Davaran (?–1988; divorced),
Jean Nyland
Children1
Academic background
Education
ThesisIdeology and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution: The Political Economy of the Ideological Currents of the Constitutional Revolution (1975)
Academic work
DisciplinePolitical science and Iranian studies
Institutions

Biography

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Milani was born in Iran to a prosperous family and was sent to California when he was sixteen, graduating from Oakland Technical High School in 1966 after only one year of studies.[4] Milani earned his Bachelor of Arts in political science and economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1970; and his Doctor of Philosophy in political science from the University of Hawaiʻi in 1974.[citation needed]

With his then-girlfriend Fereshteh, Milani returned to Iran to serve as an assistant professor of political science at the National University of Iran from 1975 to 1977.[4] He lectured on Marxist themes veiled in metaphor but was jailed for two years as a political prisoner for "activities against the government".[4] He was a research fellow at the Iranian Center for Social Research from 1977 to 1978. He was also an assistant professor of law and political science at the University of Tehran and a member of the board of directors of Tehran University's Center for International Studies from 1979 to 1986, but after the Iranian Revolution he was not allowed to publish or teach.[4] He left Iran in 1986 during the time of the Iran–Iraq War for the United States, and his son Hamid and his wife Fereshteh followed.[4]

Returning to California, Milani was appointed professor of History and Political Science as well as chair of the department at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, California.[citation needed] He served as a research fellow at the Institute of International Studies at University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley).[citation needed]

Milani became a Hoover Institution research fellow in 2001 and left Notre Dame de Namur for Stanford University in 2002.[4] He is currently the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University.

Political activities

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Milani embraced Marxism–Leninism during his youth and was a member of a Maoist underground cell that was uncovered by Iranian security forces in 1975.[5] He was subsequently jailed at Evin Prison, and became disillusioned with revolutionary politics. His eventual ideology has been described as neoconservative.[6] In July 2009, Milani appeared in a United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing amidst 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, and called for imposing "multilateral and crippling sanctions" on Iranians.[7] He also advised the congressmen not to support the military invasion of Iran because it would not politically contribute to the American goal of regime change.[7] Shortly afterward, Iranian prosecutors in the post-election trials built a case against the defendants by connecting them to Milani, mentioning him by name in the official indictment.[7] Hamid Dabashi criticized Milani for throwing monkey wrenches at Green Movement of Iran by supporting foreign intervention instead of grassroots democracy in Iran.[7]

Personal life

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Milani separated from his first wife, Fereshteh Davaran, in 1988.[8] He lives on Stanford campus with his second wife, Jean Nyland, who is chair of Notre Dame de Namur's psychology department.[4]

Bibliography

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Books

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  • Milani, Abbas (1982). Malraux and the Tragic Vision. Agah Press.
  • Milani, Abbas (1987). On Democracy and Socialism. Pars Press.
  • Milani, Abbas (1998). Modernity and Its Foes in Iran. Gardon Press.
  • Milani, Abbas (1996). Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir. Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers.
  • Milani, Abbas (2004). Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran. Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers. ISBN 9781933823744.[3]
  • Milani, Abbas (2008). Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979, Volumes One and Two. New York, NY: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815609070.
  • Milani, Abbas (2009). The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution. Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers. ISBN 9781933823348.
  • Milani, Abbas (2011). The Shah. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-7193-7.[9]
  • Milani, Abbas (2013). The Myth of the Great Satan: A New Look at America's Relations with Iran. Hoover Institution Press Publication. Hoover Press. ISBN 9780817911362.
  • Milani, Abbas; Diamond, Larry Jay (2015). Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran: Challenging the Status Quo. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 9781626371477.

Essays and articles

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References

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  1. ^ ""Culture wars" and democracy in Iran: A new politics?". The Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. The President and Fellows of Harvard College. Retrieved 2020-11-21. Hamid & Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and Co-Director of the Iran Democracy Project at Hoover Institution
  2. ^ Kane, Karla (February 28, 2020). "Hoover Institute hosts Intelligence Squared U.S. debate on Iran". www.almanacnews.com. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  3. ^ a b Tucker, Ernest (December 2005). "Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran, by Abbas Milani. Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers, 2004. 168 pages. US$19.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-934211-90-6". Middle East Studies Association Bulletin. 39 (2): 231–233. doi:10.1017/S0026318400048355. ISSN 0026-3184. S2CID 165060180.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Harlick, Jeanene (2005-11-11). "SQUARE PEG / Abbas Milani is the only Iran expert and one of very few politically independent scholars at Hoover Institution". SFGate. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  5. ^ Beard, Michael (1999), "Review: Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir by Abbas Milani", Middle East Journal, 53 (3): 490, JSTOR 4329373
  6. ^ Khosrowjah, Hossein (2011), "A Brief History of Area Studies and International Studies", Arab Studies Quarterly, 33 (3/4): 141, JSTOR 41858661
  7. ^ a b c d Dabashi, Hamid (2011), The Green Movement in Iran, Transaction Publishers, pp. 128–132, 134–136, ISBN 978-1-4128-1841-4
  8. ^ Ratnesar, Romesh (July–August 2010), "The Iranian Optimist", Stanford Magazine
  9. ^ "The Shah by Abbas Milani, Palgrave, $30 (480p) ISBN 978-1-4039-7193-7". publishersweekly.com. November 15, 2010. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
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