What the U.S. Needs to Know About Iran

Worldview ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 13-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yahya Armajani

The recent uprisings in Iran took the world in general and the United States in particular completely by surprise. Indeed, the shah himself and his government were caught off guard. He had stated repeatedly in his frequent interviews with foreign reporters that there was a close bond between him and the people of Iran, that he was like a father to them, and that he loved them and they loved him.If he actually believed this, then he must have been shocked to witness a grass roots revolt, the like of which had not been seen in the history of Iran.

2015 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
David L. Wilson

Anyone who really wants to understand U.S. immigration policy needs to read the brief history of the U.S.-Mexico border in Aviva Chomsky's often-brilliant new book on immigration.&hellip; Politicians constantly tell us we have lost control of the border. In fact, as <em>Undocumented</em> demonstrates, never in the 166 years since the border was established by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo has it been so tightly controlled as it is now. For nearly half its history it was exactly the thing immigration opponents say they fear most&mdash;an open border. The first serious restrictions did not come until a head tax and a literacy requirement were imposed in 1917, and even then there was an exemption for Mexican workers, the people most likely to enter the country from the south.&hellip; The United States wanted this labor for a reason: it was cheap and disposable.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-5" title="Vol. 67, No. 5: October 2015" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>


2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Priest

This paper analyzes the major debates over future petroleum supply in the United States, in particular the long-running feud between the world-famous geologist, M. King Hubbert, and the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Vincent E. McKelvey. The intellectual history of resource evaluation reveals that, by the mid-twentieth century, economists had come to control the discourse of defining a “natural resource.” Their assurances of abundance overturned earlier conceptions of petroleum supplies as fixed and finite in favor of a more flexible understanding of resource potential in a capitalist society and acceptance of the price elasticity of natural resources. In 1956, King Hubbert questioned these assurances by predicting that U.S. domestic oil production would peak around 1970, which drew him into a long-running debate with McKelvey and the so-called “Cornucopians.” When Hubbert’s Peak was validated in the mid-1970s, he became a prophet. The acceptance of Hubbert’s theory ensured the centrality of oil in almost all discourses about the future, and it even created a cultural movement of prophecy believers fixated on preparing for the oil end times. Although notions of resource cornucopia seem to be once again in ascendance in the United States, Hubbert’s Peak still haunts any consideration of humanity’s environmental future.


Author(s):  
Alice NASTASE BUCIUTA ◽  

The author of over 50 volumes of poetry and prose - original volumes or anthologies in Romanian and English, poems for children, or translations - Nina Cassian (1924-2014) is one of the most prolific writers of Romanian literature, a leading poet whose work, following her relocation to the U.S. and her writing in English, has been recognized throughout the world. She made her debut in 1947 with the volume La scara 1/1 which, although it did not receive official recognition within Romania itself during the communist regime, marked a significant moment in the history of Romanian literature and received particular reverence from the poetic world. Her next 19 original volumes of poetry, written in Romanian reflect in an original and extremely authentic manner her inner feelings, through an unparalleled poetic discourse of diversity and creativity. In 1985 Nina Cassian was forced into exile in the United States, to avoid persecution of Romanian security and, after a few years of silence and deep suffering, was reborn, as it were, in English, finding poetry in the language of her country of refuge and finally receiving recognition. She died in New York just short of her ninetienth birthday.


Author(s):  
Rosina Lozano

An American Language is a political history of the Spanish language in the United States. The nation has always been multilingual and the Spanish language in particular has remained as an important political issue into the present. After the U.S.-Mexican War, the Spanish language became a language of politics as Spanish speakers in the U.S. Southwest used it to build territorial and state governments. In the twentieth century, Spanish became a political language where speakers and those opposed to its use clashed over what Spanish's presence in the United States meant. This book recovers this story by using evidence that includes Spanish language newspapers, letters, state and territorial session laws, and federal archives to profile the struggle and resilience of Spanish speakers who advocated for their language rights as U.S. citizens. Comparing Spanish as a language of politics and as a political language across the Southwest and noncontiguous territories provides an opportunity to measure shifts in allegiance to the nation and exposes differing forms of nationalism. Language concessions and continued use of Spanish is a measure of power. Official language recognition by federal or state officials validates Spanish speakers' claims to US citizenship. The long history of policies relating to language in the United States provides a way to measure how U.S. visions of itself have shifted due to continuous migration from Latin America. Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens are crucial arbiters of Spanish language politics and their successes have broader implications on national policy and our understanding of Americans.


1997 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. A. LEE

This study represents part of a long-term research program to investigate the influence of U.K. accountants on the development of professional accountancy in other parts of the world. It examines the impact of a small group of Scottish chartered accountants who emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Set against a general theory of emigration, the study's main results reveal the significant involvement of this group in the founding and development of U.S. accountancy. The influence is predominantly with respect to public accountancy and its main institutional organizations. Several of the individuals achieved considerable eminence in U.S. public accountancy.


2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-343
Author(s):  
Francis Dupuis-Déri

Résumé.L'étude des discours des «pères fondateurs» du Canada moderne révèle qu'ils étaient ouvertement antidémocrates. Comment expliquer qu'un régime fondé dans un esprit antidémocratique en soit venu à être identifié positivement à la démocratie? S'inspirant d'études similaires sur les États-Unis et la France, l'analyse de l'histoire du mot «démocratie» révèle que le Canada a été associé à la «démocratie» en raison de stratégies discursives des membres de l'élite politique qui cherchaient à accroître leur capacité de mobiliser les masses à l'occasion des guerres mondiales, et non pas à la suite de modifications constitutionnelles ou institutionnelles qui auraient justifié un changement d'appellation du régime.Abstract.An examination of the speeches of modern Canada's “founding fathers” lays bare their openly anti-democratic outlook. How did a regime founded on anti-democratic ideas come to be positively identified with democracy? Drawing on the examples of similar studies carried out in the United States and France, this analysis of the history of the term “democracy” in Canada shows that the country's association with “democracy” was not due to constitutional or institutional changes that might have justified re-labelling the regime. Instead, it was the result of the political elite's discursive strategies, whose purpose was to strengthen the elite's ability to mobilize the masses during the world wars.


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Stocker

Nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZs) were an important development in the history of nuclear nonproliferation efforts. From 1957 through 1968, when the Treaty of Tlatelolco was signed, the United States struggled to develop a policy toward NWFZs in response to efforts around the world to create these zones, including in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Many within the U.S. government initially rejected the idea of NWFZs, viewing them as a threat to U.S. nuclear strategy. However, over time, a preponderance of officials came to see the zones as advantageous, at least in certain areas of the world, particularly Latin America. Still, U.S. policy pertaining to this issue remained conservative and reactive, reflecting the generally higher priority given to security policy than to nuclear nonproliferation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Rury

The distinguished Africanist Robert Harms once observed that “we historians are a practical people who pride ourselves on our attention to facts and our painstaking attention to detail.” If this is the case in other parts of the world, it is certainly true of American historians, who have been periodically admonished for their disinterest in questions of theory and purpose related to their craft. In this issue we have an opportunity to discuss the question of theory as it may pertain to the history of education, with particular attention to the United States. Regardless of whether one believes that historians should be ardent students of social theory, after all, there is little question about whether they should be cognizant of it. Indeed, there is danger in ignoring it. Quoting John Maynard Keynes, Harms suggested that practical people who feel “exempt from any intellectual influences” run the risk of “becoming slaves to some defunct economist.”


1988 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-124
Author(s):  
Marian McDonald

November 1988 marks the tenth anniversary of the U.S. Government's adoption of guidelines for federally-funded sterilizations. This action was the result of years of organizing by the anti-sterilization abuse movement which grew in the early 1970s in response to the alarming increase in numbers of coercive sterilizations, particularly among poor and minority women. This retrospective examination looks at the strengths and weaknesses of anti-sterilization abuse organizing in the United States, and draws out lessons for other areas of work. It begins by exploring the problem of sterilization abuse and the history of the movement against it. The movement is analyzed using key theoretical concepts of community organizing. An evaluation indicates that the anti-abuse efforts were successful and rich with lessons for reproductive rights and other popular health struggles today.


2021 ◽  

The fourth volume of The Cambridge History of America and the World examines the heights of American global power in the mid-twentieth century and how challenges from at home and abroad altered the United States and its role in the world. The second half of the twentieth century marked the pinnacle of American global power in economic, political, and cultural terms, but even as it reached such heights, the United States quickly faced new challenges to its power, originating both domestically and internationally. Highlighting cutting-edge ideas from scholars from all over the world, this volume anatomizes American power as well as the counters and alternatives to 'the American empire.' Topics include US economic and military power, American culture overseas, human rights and humanitarianism, third-world internationalism, immigration, communications technology, and the Anthropocene.


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