"There are surprisingly few books, on any society, which attempt to do what this book does: chart the trajectory of changes in class structures over time . . . . Potentially of interest not just to specialists but to sociologists interested in social stratification and social change."—Erik Olin Wright, author of Class Counts: Comparative Studies in Class Analysis
"The authors are prominent scholars in the field. . . . [This book] embodies new insights on the subject [and] encompasses a thorough and detailed examination of the data, and the analysis is carried to a new and higher stage of conceptualization and maturity."—Fatemeh E. Moghadam, Hofstra University
Description
In the past twenty-five years Iran has experienced a revolution and a turbulent postrevolutionary period under an Islamic state that declared itself the government of the oppressed while it struggled to establish a utopian Islamic economy. In this pioneering work Farhad Nomani and Sohrab Behdad provide a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of change and class configuration in Iranian society. Using an empirical framework, they map the trajectory of class changes over time, specifically noting the movements between prerevolutionary and postrevolutionary Iran. A centerpiece of the book is its analysis of the changes in the pattern of employment of women in the postrevolutionary period. Despite its conceptual and quantitative approach, the book is written in a clear and lucid style, making it accessible to a wide audience. The authors provide a fresh look into Iranian society by exploring the changes in its essential underlying economic structure, and in doing so, they lay the foundation for comparative studies of the social hierarchy of labor in other Middle Eastern countries.
About the Author
Farhad Nomani is a professor and cochair of the Department of Economics at the American University of Paris and was a member of the Faculty of Economics at Tehran University from 1972 to 1983. He is the coeditor of Islam and Public Policy, coauthor of Islamic Economic Systems and The Secular Miracle: Religion, Politics, and Economic Policy in Iran, and author of The Development of Feudalism in Iran (in Persian).
Sohrab Behdad is a professor and the John E. Harris Chair in Economics at Denison University and was a member of the Faculty of Economics at Tehran University from 1972 to 1983. He is the former president of the Middle East Economic Association and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. He is the coeditor of Islam and Public Policy and Iran: Crisis of Islamic State and author of articles on the postrevolutionary economy of Iran and the critique of Islamic economics.
June 2006
