Chehabi Publishes Book Culture Wars and Dual Society in Iran
Houchang E. Chehabi, Professor of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, has published a new book entitled Culture Wars and Dual Society in Iran (Amsterdam: International Institute of Social History, 2018).
Chehabi’s book explores how Iranian society is characterized by a cultural divide between those who have, however superficially, adopted a cosmopolitan lifestyle and those who are more inclined to stick to the old ways.
According to Chehabi, the origin of this bifurcation lies in the nineteenth century, when growing numbers of Iranians became familiar with Europe and concluded that the solution to Iran’s perceived backwardness was an emulation of all things European.
Houchang Chehabi has taught at Harvard and has been a visiting professor at the University of St. Andrews, UCLA, and the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa. He has published two books, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (1990) and Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the Last 500 Years (2006). Chehabi has written numerous articles, book reviews, and translations. You can read more about him here.