From the New York Times bestselling author of The Shia Revival
A gripping account that overturns simplistic portrayals of Iran as a theocratic pariah state, revealing how its strategic moves on the world stage are driven by two pervasive threats—external aggression and internal dissolution
Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country’s goals really are. Vali Nasr examines Iran’s political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today’s Iran is pursuing a grand strategy aimed at securing the country internally and asserting its place in the region and the world.
Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, and original in-depth interviews with Iranian decision makers, Nasr brings to light facts and events in Iran’s political history that have been overlooked until now. He traces the roots of Iran’s strategic outlook to its experiences over the past four decades of war with Iraq in the 1980s and the subsequent American containment of Iran, invasion of Iraq in 2003, and posture toward Iran thereafter. Nasr reveals how these experiences have shaped a geopolitical outlook driven by pervasive fear of America and its plans for the Middle East.
Challenging the notion that Iran’s foreign policy simply reflects its revolutionary values or theocratic government, Iran’s Grand Strategy provides invaluable new insights into what Iran wants and why, explaining the country’s resistance to the United States, its nuclear ambitions, and its pursuit of influence and proxies across the Middle East.
'A tour-de-force that touches on how football is always mixed up with politics in every corner of the globe' Mehreen Khan, The Times and co-host of the 'Heroes & Humans' podcast
'Brings us closer to the overlooked aspects of football, the social and political ones, which truly imbue clubs with soul' Carles Viñas, author of St. Pauli: Another Football is Possible
Think you know everything about football?
Which football match triggered a war? How did 'the beautiful game' push back against the tyranny of dictatorship, and usher another into power? Kicking Off Around the World includes 55 incredible stories in which football clubs have been a mirror to—and a maker of—world history and politics.
Full of anecdotes, surprising facts and illustrations, Ramon Usall mixes the grassroots with the greatest of all time; the unknown and the unforgettable. He looks at the women’s game, football during the war in Ukraine, and stories of clubs from Britain to the US, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, from football under the Nazis to the communists and everyone in between.
Lees meerL‘Europe est en passe de devenir une superpuissance fédérale au sein d’un nouvel ordre mondial. Étrangement, cette mutation se produit subrepticement.
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