Golnar: What was the Shah's program for building what he called a great civilization in Iran? How did it simultaneously and seemingly pretty contradictory draw on left wing ideas while also being above all else a tool to preempt the left? And then lastly, how did these efforts to manufacture consent relate to that entire project of repressive institution building that we've been discussing? Golnar: One response is repression. But another as you just began to lay out was the attempt to construct an image of the Shah as a more legitimate sort of nationalist leader,. someone like Nasser.
Featuring Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi and Golnar Nikpour on the history of modern Iran. This is the third episode in our four-part series. We pick up in the wake of the US-British 1953 coup against Mossadegh, assess the Shah's repression and attempts to manufacture consent through passive revolution, and then close by laying out the 1979 Islamic Revolution in all of its wild complexity.
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