A well-documented and persuasively written examination of the change in Iranian women’s status under the country’s secular...
A nuanced look at the role women have played in Iran in the 20th and 21st centuries.
In this debut nonfiction book, Ansary looks at the role of women in modern Iran from a sociopolitical perspective, pushing beyond stereotypes to assess the actual impacts of government policies, religious beliefs, and social norms on women’s lives. The book focuses on a key paradox of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. With the veil legalized and the coeducational classrooms of the previous era strictly segregated by sex, the clerics created an environment in which girls from traditional families could attend school without violating social norms, leading to an unintended increase in the education of women after the shah’s laws encouraging gender equity were repealed: “The fact is that the so-called Islamization of education has proven to be responsible for generating unprecedented educational gains for the vast majority of the female population.” Ansary also examines the roles of textbooks, which continue to depict women in professional roles, and women’s magazines, which have expressed and represented the views of women from across a spectrum of feminist beliefs. While she counters the stereotype of the veiled woman kept entirely under male control, Ansary does acknowledge that women’s rights have been curtailed under religious law; even reformist politicians are limited by the ayatollahs’ strictures. But Ansary is able to connect the restrictions on women’s freedom to the broader context of domestic politics in Iran, particularly the 2009 anti-government demonstrations. She notes, “Perhaps the government’s failed ideology has been most obvious to a defiant female population that continues to boldly protest their enforced status of inferiority.” The book, which is thoroughly footnoted, concludes with a series of captioned pictures of notable Iranian women. Although the book’s approach is often academic, with references to theories of child development and political structure, it maintains an engaging tone that makes it easy for casual readers to follow the arguments.
A well-documented and persuasively written examination of the change in Iranian women’s status under the country’s secular and religious governments.Pub Date: June 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0986406409
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Revela Press
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A compelling book dealing with the question of MIAs in Vietnam. As a journalist Keating has worked for Soldier of Fortune magazine and the conservative Washington Times. Nonetheless, in the present volume, she uses her skills as an investigative reporter to attack the notion that American POWs and MIAs were left behind in Indochina. A vocal lobby clamors for a full accounting of all MIAs, numbered by the federal government at around 1,200. Reported sightings add fuel to the belief that American soldiers were held hostage by the Vietnamese and abandoned by a government eager to put the war behind it. After all, the logic goes, hadn't it happened to the French in the 1950s? The truth, however, according to Keating, is that the US experience is not that of the French: No American POWs remain. And aside from a few known defectors, all the MIAs are dead. Citing the 80,000 missing from WW II, Keating points out that MIAs are part of the nature of modern warfare, in which the recovery or identification of remains is often impossible. In the case of the Vietnam POWs, however, the military had reduced the number of true ``missing'' to under 100 before a political hue and cry forced them to inflate the MIA list with the names of many men known to be dead but whose bodies were not found. Sightings of live POWs are hoaxes, says Keating, designed to fuel a political machine or to extort money from relatives on the slim hope that the men are alive. She slams, in particular, mercenaries like Bull Simons and Bo Gritz, who plan raids into Indochina (most of which never occur) in search of the lost. The real conspiracy, writes Keating, is not committed by a government bent on hiding a scandal but by those who prey on the hopes and fears of the ones truly left behind—the families of the dead. Highly persuasive.
Pub Date: Nov. 11, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-43016-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
A thought-provoking examination of the global decline of villages and its implications for urban societies. Critchfield (Those Days, 1986, etc.), building on his past studies of rural life, maintains that the traditional village structure—seen here in the countrysides of Poland, Mexico, Korea, and elsewhere—has been steadily eroding under the pressure of technological change. The Green Revolution of the 1960s, the mechanization of agriculture, and the explosion in global communications have led to an exodus of villagers from the land— the most significant step in human history, avers the author, since human beings left the hunter-gatherer stage for a settled agrarian existence. Critchfield arrived at these villages early enough to witness agricultural techniques and social organization, little altered over thousands of years, marching to the death knell of changing economics and weakening religious and cultural ties. He warns that without a global reservoir of villagers, urban societies (which, with their low birth rates, are seldom self-replenishing) will face depopulation. He excoriates the World Bank for refusing to subsidize much-needed fertilizer for Africa, whose villages are alone in not sharing the bounty of the Green Revolution. Critchfield saves his most dire predictions and charges for his final section, in which he lambastes mass culture for its lack of substance and spirituality. Some readers may find his arguments here tired and specious, but it is hard to argue with his contention that the family and cultural values lost in the exodus from rural agricultural villages have not been replaced in modern, urban society. Often lyrical and evocative in its discussion of village life, although occasionally bogged down in minute details. For the patient reader, a rewarding and insightful appraisal of a major turning point in human history. (16 pages b&w photos)
Pub Date: Nov. 14, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-42050-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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