| Publication |
2014.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
For five decades, fromthe 1940s to the 1980s, Iran lived in the shadow of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The country's geography, bordering both the USSR and the oil-rich Persian Gulf, meant that its territory and natural resources were of vital strategic importance in the ideological and material contest between the two superpowers, a global struggle over nothing less than "the soul of mankind."1 With the passage of nearly seventy years since the first Soviet-American confrontation in northern Iran, a growing number of scholars are examining the history of Iran's ColdWar, especially during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Building on the work of earlier diplomatic historians, this emerging historiography looks both inward, at the impact of the Cold War on Iran, and outward, at the role of Iran in the Cold War far beyond its borders.2 This special issue showcases examples of this recent work by historians of Iran's Cold War, some of which was presented at the 2012 biannual conference of the International Society for Iranian Studies in Istanbul. Iran's importance in the Cold War is reflected in the rich literature on Iran's international history during the late Pahlavi period. The 1946 Iranian crisis marked the beginning of Iran's Cold War and the origins of the alliance between the United States and Iran, which continued until the fall of Mohammad Reza Shah in 1979.
|