Call to Arms: Irans Marxist Revolutionaries: Formation and Evolution of the Fada'is, 19641976

(Hardback)

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"On 8 February 1971, Marxist revolutionaries attacked the gendarmerie outpost at the village of Siyahkal in Irans Gilan Province. Barely two months later, the Iranian Peoples Fadai Guerrillas officially announced their existence and began a long, drawn-out urban guerrilla war against the Shahs regime. In Call to Arms, Ali Rahnema provides an exhaustive history of the Fadais, beginning by asking why so many of Irans best and brightest chose revolutionary Marxism in the face of authoritarian rule. He traces how radicalised university students from different ideological backgrounds morphed into the Marxist Fadais in 1971, and sheds light on the ideological theory and practice of the Fadais, their evolution and internal disputes. While the Peoples Fadai Guerrillas failed to directly bring about the fall of the Shah, the political and psychological conditions they created, the ideals and archetypes they established, and the forces they put in motion, namely the student movement both in Iran and overseas, had a lasting impact on society and saw their objective achieved."

Reviews

A definitive history of the Iranian Peoples Fadai Guerrillas. Theoretical frameworks are interwoven with historical narrative, and riveting anecdotes are tempered by conceptual discussions. In one volume, Ali Rahnema has compiled a comprehensive guide to understanding the ideology, activities, and legacy of the Fadais He has masterfully told the Fadais story, including their writings, their successes, and their failures, leaving readers with the impression of the Fadais as serious, brave, influential, and ideologically driven patriots.

* Iranian Studies *

Ali Rahnema has produced the most comprehensive and deeply engaging narrative to date of the revolutionary left in Iran during the 1970s A masterwork, a must-read!

-- Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University

Meticulous and riveting, this book works like a time-tunnel, taking us back to experience first-hand the dramatic heroics and painful tragedy of radical political opposition in 1960s1970s Iran.

* Afshin Matin-Asgari, author of Both Eastern and Western: An Intellectual History of Iranian Modernity *

Delivers like a ray of hope This book is an act of redemption, not just of the Iranian Marxist revolutionaries but of the spirit of the age that demanded armed uprising against tyranny.

-- Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University

Call to Arms is a significant study of Irans militant left in the 1960s and 1970s. By exploring a broad range of primary and secondary source material it closely examines the formation and operational dynamics of Irans radical opposition during the Cold War.

-- Ali Gheissari, Professor of History, University of San Diego

Rahnema has done the staggeringly difficult task of offering us a meticulously researched history of the life and times of the Fadais in late-Pahlavi Iran.

-- Roham Alvandi, Associate Professor of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science

Author Bio

Ali Rahnema is Professor of Economics at the American University of Paris. He is the author of An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shariati, Behind the 1953 Coup in Iran and Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics.