Books That Explain Iran: Essential Reading on the US-Iran Conflict
A History of Modern Iran by Ervand Abrahamian (Image Book cover)
A curated booklist for readers seeking historical context behind today’s Middle East crisis
By NIRENDRA DEV
New Delhi, March 2, 2026 — As the US-Iran-Israel conflict dominates global headlines, understanding how the present-day Islamic Republic came to be — and why its relationship with Washington is so deeply fractured — requires going beyond breaking news. A shelf of important works trace the historical, political, and imperial roots of modern Iran.
Ervand Abrahamian: The Foremost Authority on Modern Iranian History
A socialist, historian, and former active member of Iran’s anti-Shah movement, Ervand Abrahamian has built an academic career spanning Princeton, NYU, Columbia, and Oxford. He remains one of the most informed and authoritative voices on Iranian history, politics, foreign relations, and the country’s long and troubled history with the United States.
His landmark work Iran Between Two Revolutions (1982) and Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic (1993) are considered essential texts for understanding the conditions that produced present-day Iran.
In Iran Between Two Revolutions, Abrahamian traces Iran’s political and social transformation from the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909 to the Islamic Revolution of 1977–1979. Focusing on the interaction between political organisations and social forces, he examines how modern socio-economic classes emerged within a society shaped by ethnic, religious, and regional divisions — mapping the roots of key movements including the constitutionalists, the communist Tudeh party, the nationalist struggle of the 1950s, and the Islamic resurgence of the 1970s.
His A History of Modern Iran narrates Iran’s journey into becoming a key power in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, covering the discovery of its vast oil reserves, imperial interventions, the Pahlavi dynasty’s rule and its consequences, and the birth of the Islamic Republic.
Daniel Immerwahr: How America Built and Hid Its Empire
In How to Hide an Empire, historian Daniel Immerwahr combines archival research with accessible storytelling to illuminate a dimension of American identity that remains largely absent from mainstream public consciousness — its long and tangible history as an empire in a very material sense.
The book offers essential context for understanding today’s geopolitical landscape as the inevitable outcome of decades of neocolonial interventionism by a modern superpower — directly relevant to America’s deep entanglement in Middle Eastern affairs.
Afshin Matin-Asgari: The Definitive Account of US-Iran Relations
Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles, Afshin Matin-Asgari specialises in 20th-century Middle East history, modern Iran, and Islamic political and intellectual movements.
His 2026 work Axis of Empire presents an accessible yet rigorous history of US-Iran relations, covering America’s rise as an interventionist force in the Middle East, its relationship with the deposed Shah, the Islamic Revolution, and Israel’s role in the ongoing friction between Washington and Tehran.
Scholar Hamid Dabashi, author of Iran: A People Interrupted, calls it indispensable: Matin-Asgari’s book, he writes, “finally gives the story of US-Iran relations a bold and precise account of imperial and colonial underpinnings it badly needed” — and “saves you from unending miles of useless thunder noise on your newsfeed.”
Iran-US War and Global Order: America Faces Credibility Crisis
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