Books by Vali Nasr
“Why is Iran’s government so focused on opposing the US, when the price of resistance has been so high, impoverishing the country’s people and gutting the middle classes? Tracing Iran’s turbulent 20th-century history, Nasr argues it’s not about religious ideology and that our understanding of Iran’s strategic calculations is ‘hopelessly inadequate and dangerously outdated.’ Rather, it is about resisting imperialism and maintaining national sovereignty. Even the signature moniker the Ayatollah Khomeini used for the US—’Great Satan’—was apparently ‘lifted from communist propaganda literature of the 1950s.'” Read more...
Notable Nonfiction Books of Mid-2025
Sophie Roell, Journalist
Interviews where books by Vali Nasr were recommended
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1
Bombard the Headquarters! The Cultural Revolution in China
by Linda Jaivin -
2
The Death of Stalin
by Sheila Fitzpatrick -
3
Putin's Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos
by Candace Rondeaux -
4
Shamanism: The Timeless Religion
by Manvir Singh -
5
Iran's Grand Strategy: A Political History
by Vali Nasr
Notable Nonfiction Books of Mid-2025, recommended by Sophie Roell
Notable Nonfiction Books of Mid-2025, recommended by Sophie Roell
From the death of Stalin and the career of Putin’s chef to shaministic rituals on the Indonesian island of Siberut, Five Books editor Sophie Roell gives an overview of some of the excellent new nonfiction books that have appeared since April.
