Janet Afary is a native of Iran and a leading historian. Her work focuses on gender and sexuality and draws on her experience of growing up in Iran and her involvement with Iranian women of different ages and social strata. These observations, and a wealth of historical documents, form the kernel of this book, which charts the history of the nation's sexual revolution from the nineteenth century to today. What comes across is the extraordinary resilience of the Iranian people, who have dra...

Women of color remain arguably the most economically, politically, and socially marginalized group in the United States and the Third World. In Spoils of War, a diverse group of distinguished contributors suggest that acts of aggression resulting from the racism and sexism inherent in social institutions can be viewed as a sort of "war," experienced daily by women of color.

A classic of Modern Persian literature, Charand-o Parand (Stuff and Nonsense) is a work familiar to every literate Iranian. Originally a series of newspaper columns written by scholar and satirist Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, the pieces poke fun at mullahs, the shah, and the old religious and political order during the Constitutional Revolution in Iran (1906–11). The essays were the Daily Show of their era. The columns were heatedly debated in the Iranian parliament, and the new...

Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, there was a dramatic reversal of women'srights, and the state revived many premodern social conventions throughmodern means and institutions. Customs such as the enforced veiling of women,easy divorce for men, child marriage, and polygamy were robustly reintroducedand those who did not conform to societal strictures were severely punished. Atthe same time, new social and economic programs benefited the urban and rura...