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The Quest for Democracy in Iran: A Century of Struggle against Authoritarian Rule. By Fakhreddin Azimi. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008. 491 pp. $35.
The Western picture of Iran is of authoritarianism with clerical rule following centuries of shahe - punctuated by Mohammed Mossadegh, an eccentric, 195Oe prime minieter eupported by pro-Soviet forcee. Azimi, a hietory profeeeor at the Univereity of Connecticut, providee a useful corrective, illustrating how the desire for modernity runs deep among Iran's intellectuals, businessmen, and ordinary people. Few in the West realize how much Iran's political culture continues to be shaped by the 1905-1 1 Constitutional Revolution, a violent struggle to impose constitutional democracy on...