Onderzoekt en verzamelt de geschiedenis van werk, werkenden en arbeidsverhoudingen wereldwijd

Iran: from the railroad to nuclear power. Imperial constraints on Iranian development

Datum: 
4 december 2015
Locatie: 
Spui 25

1st annual Prince Dr Sabbar Farman lecture in cooperation with the International Institute of Social History (IISG)

Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan, examines the way in which Iran's development has been stunted in modern history by imperial considerations. From railroads in the nineteenth century to modern day nuclear power restraints: how has Iran been affected by a Eurocentric world system? Cole elaborates in the 1st annual Prince Dr Sabbar Farman lecture.
These imperial considerations include the way in which Iran, unlike Egypt or India, was forbidden by Britain and Russia to build a railroad in the nineteenth century. In later decades the same issue re-emerged, this time in regard to the nationalization of the oil industry. Now, in our own time, considerations of American grand strategy have placed constraints on Iran's nuclear program. While apologists for imperialism, such as Niall Ferguson have stressed the technological benefits he alleges it brought to the colonized, Iran is a clear example of how the Eurocentric world system has stunted the potentiality of less powerful countries.

Dr Cole will be introduced by prof dr Touraj Atabaki (IISH).

About the speakers

Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. His most recent book is The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East (Simon & Schuster, July 2014). He also authored Engaging the Muslim World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) and many other books. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight, the Today Show, the Colbert Report, Democracy Now! and many other television shows. He has written widely about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia, as well as on the upheavals in the Arab World since 2011, including Sunni extremist groups and Shiite politics. He has regular columns in The Nation and Truthdig. A bibliography of his writings can be found here. 

Prof Dr  Touraj Atabaki (moderator) is Senior researcher at the International Institute of Social History. He also holds the chair of the Social History of the Middle East and Central Asia at the School of the Middle East Studies of the Leiden University.

The Prince Dr Sabbar Farman - Farmaian Research Project is an academic, non-profit organization founded and financially supported by the Farman-Farmaian Family, with the mission and objective of promoting and supporting research and scholarship on Iranian social and political history, culture and civilization, with special focus on the Qajar era (1794-1925).

Please register via Spui 25