Understanding Iran

Everything You Need to Know, From Persia to the Islamic Republic, From Cyrus to Khamenei

De: William R. Polk

Narrado por: Paul Boehmer

William R. Polk provides an informative, history of a country which is moving quickly toward becoming the dominant power and culture of the Middle East.

A former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Council, Polk describes a country and a history misunderstood by many in the West. While Iranians chafe under the yolk of their current leaders, they also have bitter memories of generations of British, Russian, and American espionage, invasion, and dominance. There are important lessons to be learned from the past, and Polk teases them out of a long and rich history and shows that it is not just now, but for decades to come that an understanding of Iran will be essential to American safety and well-being.

©2009, 2016 William R. Polk (P)2020 Tantor

A Good history of Iran but…

This is an informative book about Iranian history and how it arrived at this present state.

The writer is leaning more towards the policies of the Democrats who are still to this day trying to make deals with the terrorist mullahs in Iran.
What happened to liberty for all?
There is zero liberty in Iran.

Interesting and informative

Detailed account of Iran from the beginning. A great foundation and preparation for readers wanting to learn more about recent history of Iran. The narrator is excellent. Easy to listen to and very articulate.

Great book with clear narration

This book is a must read for anyone interested in the US-Iranian relations. It gives an overview of the Iranian history, society and foreign relations before getting into the history and policies of the US concerning Iran.

Horrendous Narration

Had to return it a couple of hours in when the narrator's fake "authentic" pronunciations got too much to bear.
I think the last straw was the tired, quasi-racist cliche of reading "Tehran", "Mahmood Ahmadinezhad" and "Mohammad Reza Shah" as "Tekhran", "Makhmood Akhmadinejad" and "Mokhammad Reza Shah" respectively.

Terrible

The narrator is atrocious with ridiculous pronunciations - forget the Persian words, the reading is stilted and unnatural, just awful. The book’s central arguments are also flawed in the sense that they are deferential to some experts while quick to condemn others (the foreword argument against analyst “war games” over generalized and laughably two dimensional). No real sense of the history of Iran and the culture here, no deep examination of the impact of various military/diplomatic tools. Don’t waste your time, it’s atrocious. Read Axworthy instead.