{"product_id":"children-of-paradise-isbn-9780399573347","title":"Children of Paradise","description":"\u003cb\u003e“Deeply moving…A first-rate, highly readable intellectual history.” –\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe drama that shaped today’s Iran, from the Revolution to the present day.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In 1979, seemingly overnight—moving at a clip some thirty years faster than the rest of the world—Iran became the first revolutionary theocracy in modern times. Since then, the country has been largely a black box to the West, a sinister presence looming over the horizon. But inside Iran, a breathtaking drama has unfolded since then, as religious thinkers, political operatives, poets, journalists, and activists have imagined and reimagined what Iran should be. They have drawn as deeply on the traditions of the West as of the East and have acted upon their beliefs with urgency and passion, frequently staking their lives for them. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e With more than a decade of experience reporting on, researching, and writing about Iran, Laura Secor narrates this unprecedented history as a story of individuals caught up in the slipstream of their time, seizing and wielding ideas powerful enough to shift its course as they wrestle with their country’s apparatus of violent repression as well as its rich and often tragic history. Essential reading at this moment when the fates of our countries have never been more entwined, \u003ci\u003eChildren of Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e will stand as a classic of political reporting; an indelible portrait of a nation and its people striving for change.\u003cb\u003eNamed a Must-Read by Flavorwire \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003cb\u003eCould not be more timely\u003c\/b\u003e. … Indelibly portrays the journalists, dissidents, reformers and student activists who have fought bravely for their ideals in a country where voicing one’s beliefs has often led to imprisonment, torture and death. … Secor’s portraits create an impressionistic montage of Iranian life during the last 37 years, which is hugely valuable in helping us understand Iran’s complex back story. … They provide sharp, pinhole windows into a country that for many years has seemed, in her words, like 'a black box whose contents were all but unknowable.' —Michiko Kakutani, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A deeply moving, intimate collection of personal stories...[Secor gives], through extensive interviews with Iranians in the country and in exile, \u003cb\u003ea first-rate, highly readable intellectual history\u003c\/b\u003e…\u003cb\u003eMs. Secor is at her very best when she relays the bravery and despair of dissidents\u003c\/b\u003e, in particular the agony of women who have thrown themselves into the fight…Ms. Secor last visited Iran in 2012. We can hope that she isn’t denied a visa in the future for her truth-telling. If she is, \u003ci\u003eChildren of Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e was worth the price.” —\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Democracy is always a work in progress. This point is made crystal clear in journalist Laura Secor’s exhaustively researched book … an insightful view of the evolving intellectual character of a nation that has been largely hidden from us for forty years. … \u003cb\u003eA stellar example of investigative journalism and narrative nonfiction.” —\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“\u003cb\u003eEntrancing\u003c\/b\u003e...In [Secor's] hands, clerics, scholars, and others who helped Iran morph into a republic where mosque and state are inseparable are like larger-than-life character from an epic novel...If beginning to know a people, a country, can help further our appreciation of them, [\u003ci\u003eChildren of Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e is] an important building block.”\u003ci\u003e —O, the Oprah Magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Mesmerizing…Secor captures the extraordinary intellectual and political ferment of a country where millions of people chafe under authoritarian rule...\u003cb\u003esubstantive and deeply affecting\u003c\/b\u003e.\"—\u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“A vibrant panorama of contemporary Iran that doubles as a thorough intellectual and political history of the country’s past four decades…highly accessible.”\u003ci\u003e —Foreign Affairs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“Americans … might take this moment to enjoy Secor’s book to gain a better understanding of Iran’s rich recent history. In it, they will find this lesson: the circle may tighten around intellectual life in Iran, around political progress, and around the complicated heroes who hold down, often unsuccessfully, those barricades—but the ideas that animate these figures and their impulses, the debates behind them, will live on underground, behind closed doors, until it’s time to bloom again. Secor’s story … is a refreshingly Iranian tale—but for us there is this implicit warning: Do not trample this soil and foreclose that next Spring.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A thrilling introduction to Iranian culture and the daring intellectuals who have crafted ideological challenges to the rulers of the Islamic Republic.\" —\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Thoughtful political history [that] comprehensive[ly] engage[s] with the social and intellectual complexities that shaped the creation of this modern-day religious state… In visceral detail, Secor describes the political lurches and turns of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the country’s transformation from autocratic fiefdom to a theocratic “democracy.”… \u003ci\u003eChildren of Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e works particularly well because it reaches beyond the documentation of Iran’s turbulent recent history, and succeeds in personifying it.” —\u003ci\u003eHaaretz\u003cbr\u003e                      \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"[\u003ci\u003eChildren of Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e] covers a wide array of people, from political thinkers to reformers to revolutionaries, and provides fascinating glimpses and insights into a number of conflicts within Iran, as well as exploring the ideological debates behind them—ones which may have previously made little sense to many Western observers.\" —\u003ci\u003eSignature Reads\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“Secor’s book, which peers inside the 'black box' of a complex theocratic regime over the course of decades, will likely provide grist for arguments on more than one side.” —\u003ci\u003eFlavorwire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Revealing [and] often shocking… An insightful chronicle of bloody repression and brave defiance.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“This immersive intellectual history… offers a firm grounding in the last 40 years of Iranian political thought and the many actions it has inspired in a complicated and fascinating country.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An essential read [that] will help to shed light on the dreams, hardships, and changing views of the individuals who have helped to impact the direction of a nation…highly recommended.” —\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping post-revolutionary Iran will be rewarded by this intimate and intellectually thrilling portrait. It’s a towering accomplishment.\"\u003cbr\u003e—Lawrence Wright, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Looming Tower \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThirteen Days in September\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Transcending the political clichés that are often offered as new insights on Iran, this wonderful and timely book provides a glimpse into what Secor calls the 'soul of the matter.' For once the focus is not on the rulers but on those who, with anguish and determination, tried to bring about political change—even as they themselves were transformed—and their desire, above all, to restore and preserve their country's sense of dignity, and their own.\"\u003cbr\u003e—Azar Nafisi, author of \u003ci\u003eReading Lolita in Tehran\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Republic of Imagination\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Anyone who ever thought of Iran as a monolith must read \u003ci\u003eChildren of Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e, which takes the reader far behind its fearsome caricature. The children referred to in the title are the brilliant dreamers behind the transformative ideology that produced today’s Iran. This is a meticulously reported intellectual history, but much more. Secor doesn’t flinch from depicting the cruelty of the revolutionary republic, but throughout, it is the passion and promise of the people that shines through.\"\u003cbr\u003e—Barbara Demick, author of the National Book Award finalist \u003ci\u003eNothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eLaura Secor\u003c\/b\u003e has written about Iran for \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Foreign Affairs, The New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e, and other publications, and has worked at \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eNew York Times,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe American Prospect\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eLingua Franca\u003c\/i\u003e. She has been a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center and the American Academy in Berlin, and has taught journalism at NYU and Princeton. Secor lives in Brooklyn.one\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Little Black Fish\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On a cold winter night, at the bottom of the sea, a wise old fish      gathered twelve thousand of her children and grandchildren and      told them a story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Once upon a time, she began, a little black fish lived in a      mountain stream with its mother. From dawn until dusk, mother and      child swam in circles, in and out of crevices, following each      other until night fell and they went to sleep in their home under      a mossy rock.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e One morning before sunrise, the little fish woke its mother and      announced that it was leaving. A single thought had come to      possess its mind: Where, the little black fish wanted to know, did      the stream end?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The mother laughed. \"My dear,\" she said, \"a stream has no      beginning and no end. That's the way it is. The stream just flows      and never goes anywhere.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The little black fish was certain that this could not be true.      Despite threats from its elders, and to the awe of its peers, off      it went, down the waterfall and into a pond, where the only      creatures in sight were tadpoles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The tadpoles told the little black fish that they came from      nobility and that they were the most beautiful creatures in the      world. The world, they said with confidence, was the pond where      they swam. Their mother, a frog, chided the black fish, calling it      a \"worthless creature\" for leading her young astray.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Undaunted, the little black fish swam on, outwitting predators and      overcoming many obstacles on its way to the open sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There the fish found a school of brave, indomitable fish like      itself. So powerful was this school of fish that it foiled      fishermen by dragging their nets to the bottom of the sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At last the little black fish had found its true place in the      world. Before joining its brethren, it went for a swim along the      water's surface, where it could feel the sun on its back. The fish      knew that it was vulnerable to predators there, but by now it also      understood that its own mortality was a trifle. \"What does      matter,\" the fish told itself, \"is the influence that my life or      death will have on the lives of others.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Just then, a heron swooped and swallowed the fish. Inside the      heron's stomach, the little black fish heard someone crying. It      was another fish, tiny and young, who missed his mother. The      little black fish thought quickly. It would swim around to tickle      the heron's stomach, the black fish told its tiny companion. When      the heron laughed, the tiny fish should leap out of her mouth. The      little black fish would stay behind and kill the heron with a      dagger made from a blade of grass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And so the little black fish tickled, and so the tiny fish leapt.      From the safety of the water, the tiny fish watched the heron      writhe and shout, beating her wings as she fell to her death. But      the little black fish never emerged.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The grandmother fish had finished her story. She and eleven      thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine of her spawn went off to      sleep. One little red fish lay awake. She could not stop thinking      about the sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So goes the childrenÕs story that inspired a generation of Iranian      revolutionaries. The Little Black Fish, by Samad Behrangi, was      published in 1968, the year its twenty-nine-year-old author spent      a hot week at the end of August touring villages near the Aras      River in the north of Iran. He was collecting folklore with a      friend, something he had done often in the remote rural villages      of his homeland. One day he waded by the shore of the river to      cool himself while his friend swam. The young writer was not aware      of it, but the Aras was known locally for its fierce current,      which easily lashed him from the spot where he stood. Behrangi      could not swim. He cried out, but by the time his friend reached      him, he had vanished into the riverÕs depths. The author of The      Little Black Fish drowned, his body pulled five kilometers      downstream, where it was found three days later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Behrangi had spent a decade traveling to poor villages,      distributing books he'd purchased himself to needy children. He      was not a religious man but a man of the left, moved by the depth      of rural poverty. He noticed something on these trips: Iran was      not only an unequal country, but a country alienated from itself.      Iranian elites were steeped in the ideas, the culture, the mores      of Europe and America. But the country's interior was nothing like      those places.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Iranian teacher-training texts, Behrangi noted in an early essay,      came overwhelmingly from America, and they focused on concerns,      including childhood obesity and school lunch programs, that were      laughably inapplicable to Iranian village life. When Iranian      children were taught English-a language Behrangi also      studied-their textbooks referenced hot dogs and baseball, cultural      markers that were meaningless to the children of rural Iran.      Iranian teachers ought to focus on the pressing needs and cultural      realities of Iranian children, to come up with their own pedagogy      to fit their real context.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Behrangi wrote short stories in the form of folktales in order to      avoid censorship, but within them he embedded revolutionary      exhortations, even to the violent overthrow of the ruling class      with its American affectations. If The Little Black Fish strikes      today's Western reader as dark for a children's book, that was not      Behrangi's concern. \"I don't desire that aware children read my      stories only for pleasure,\" he wrote. \"We must lead our children      away from building hopes on false and empty visions, toward      creating hopes based on a correct understanding and interpretation      of the harsh realities of society and on how to struggle to      eliminate those harsh realities.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Eleven years after his death, when Behrangi's countrymen dragged      the fisherman's net to the floor of the open sea, many of them      cited his story as their inspiration. It was a parable of courage      and sacrifice, and of the refusal to be blinded by convention or      confined by fate. At the time of Behrangi's writing, in 1968, Iran      seemed, to some, like a plebeian mountain stream that just flowed      and never went anywhere; to others, like a haughty, noble frog      pond that did not even know the stream that fed it. The germ of      revolution was to refuse to be bounded by the accidents of birth,      the fear of predators, or the riverbanks of fate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Nobody asks anymore why Iran had a revolution in 1979. Western      powers had robbed Iran of its resources and made puppets of its      leaders. Iranians suffered political repression and glaring      inequality. IranÕs religious leaders and its merchant class saw      the culture and economy they held dear slipping away, displaced by      arrangements suitable to foreigners. With all we now know, the      Islamic Revolution of 1979 seems overdetermined. But what we      forget, or underestimate, or maybe never knew, is that the Iranian      Revolution was not a simple act of refusal-of modernity; of the      West; even, in the end, of absolute rule. It emerged in      impassioned, ambivalent dialogue among passionate, ambivalent      people. And the state it produced is passionately ambivalent, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Outside Iran, we have come to associate the Islamic Revolution      with the severe, otherworldly face of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini      and the return of theocracy in the twentieth century. Behind and      within this story is another history-of a revolutionary impulse as      complexly modern as the society that produced it, and which has      yielded a culture of civic engagement as imperishable as the quest      of the little red fish. To the extent that the postrevolutionary      state has tried to deny the multiplicity of its origins and to      suppress the engagement of its people, its course has followed an      arc of tragedy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The story of Iran's Islamic Revolution and the republic it spawned      is not only-perhaps not even primarily-a story about religion. It      is a story about politics and identity, about social division and      cohesion, about the forces that move history everywhere in the      world. It is also the story of individuals who have quested      ceaselessly, pressing against seemingly impermeable barriers, for      the open sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Iranian revolutionaries sometimes describe their revolution, in      terms resonant with Behrangi, as the convergence of many streams      of thought and activism. Some of these streams were religious.      Others were secular. Where the basin widened, the religious and      secular ideas became, if not indistinguishable, inextricable. That      did not occur right away. But when it did, history happened, and      has been happening ever since.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To make a myth of Samad Behrangi's eerily resonant death by      drowning was nearly irresistible. The man who did so was      Behrangi's friend and champion in Tehran's intellectual circles,      Jalal Al-e Ahmad, an essayist active against Iran's autocratic      king, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Al-e Ahmad had hosted Behrangi      at his Tehran salon, and he wrote affectionately about the      teacher, storyteller, and folklorist he called his younger      brother. It was Al-e Ahmad who floated the legend that Behrangi      was murdered by the shah's secret police, even persuading the      friend who was with Behrangi the day he drowned to keep quiet      about the details of the accident.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That fall Al-e Ahmad wrote in an essay, \"Now we must mourn in our      agony for this younger brother and eulogize him? And anyway, how      many Samads do we have? . . . No, it's no good. Now it's better if      I . . . instead of mourning this younger brother's death or      carrying a cane, start a rumor that Samad, just like that Little      Black Fish, has made his way through [the] Aras to the sea so that      he may reappear one day.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With Behrangi, Jalal Al-e Ahmad was one of the most important fish      in the secular stream. His most famous work was an extended essay      called Westoxication, published underground in 1962. Westoxication      excoriated Iranians for what Al-e Ahmad saw as their self-loathing      worship of the West. This plague ate away at Iranian industry,      culture, power, and self-esteem. The machine, invented in the West      and controlled by the West, was devastating Iranian pastoral life.      The old arrangements, economic and social, had been upended, but      the new ones, devised elsewhere and evolved to suit an alien      history and culture, made no sense for Iran's largely rural      people. There was no use trying to rewind modernity; the only hope      was for Iranians to seize control of the machine themselves, to      bring it to their villagers not as a replacement for their labor      but as a tool for their betterment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Westoxication would become the foundational text of revolutionary      Iran's anti-Americanism. But it was a cry less of hatred than of      anguish. That Iran had borrowed too heavily from the West, that it      had adopted an alien intellectual tradition that lacked roots in      local culture or history-that Iranians consequently saw themselves      as inferior to Westerners, and saw themselves through the eyes of      Westerners who looked down on them-was a nearly inevitable      critique at that time. But Western influence on Iranian      philosophical thought was too deep to cast off completely, its      attraction too profound. Iran was enmeshed as though in a      relationship with an abusive lover, self-loathing bound up with      the contempt in which it was held. For the very fact of loving its      abuser, Iran hated itself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The solution to this problem was not obvious. The Western      intellectual tradition was intertwined with the Persian one from      its root. The Shiite seminaries of Najaf and Qom taught the same      ancient Greek philosophy that lay at the foundation of European      thought. Generations of Iranian students abroad soaked up European      ideas and brought them home. Iranian thinkers had built on,      around, and against these schools of European thought. Al-e Ahmad      himself ended his anti-Western manifesto by appealing to the works      of Albert Camus, Eugene Ionesco, and Ingmar Bergman. Was there      really any such thing as a separable Western tradition? If so, was      it something alien, adapted from and to foreign cultures and      different circumstances, or was it, even so, as much an Iranian      birthright as a French or German or American one? The Iranian      thinkers of the 1960s embodied this dilemma. In their effort to      create a native, Iranian intellectual language and political      ideology, they drew on Western sources, because those sources were      as natural to them as the native ones-as available, as meaningful,      as useful.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jalal Al-e Ahmad died in 1969. And when he did, perhaps the most      influential thinker of all stood ready to carry the revolutionary      relay to its finish. Ali Shariati would fashion an ideology that      was the stuff of a generation's dreams: militant, transcendent,      and inalienably, authentically, Iranian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Shariati, a charismatic orator and Islamist ideologue in the      eastern shrine city of Mashhad, had met Al-e Ahmad earlier that      year. Younger, wilder, more imaginative-already holding sway over      rooms of students who sat, hypnotized, well after the bell that      marked the end of class-Shariati must have known at some level      that the light Al-e Ahmad carried would soon pass into his own      hands. When the author of Westoxication died, Shariati wrote, ÒI      completely forgot all the memories, ties, friendship, intimacy and      harmony that existed between me and dear Jalal. His face faded      away in my memory and instead another loomed. It was my own face!      It was as if I had heard the news of my own death.Ó\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Shariati called for casting off what he saw as the courtly,      superstitious, passive Islam of the clergy and reviving what he      considered the true Islam-one that was militant and      justice-seeking, and which contained the answers to nearly all of      man's problems. He married the language and concerns of Iran's      secular opposition to the identity of its Shiite masses. He might      as well have split the atom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Shariati's charisma was legendary. He habitually arrived late to      his lectures, smoked while he spoke, and held forth for as many as      six hours at a stretch. But the oratory was so powerful that one      of his students told his biographer, \"During his lectures, you      would be so carried away with his performance that you wouldn't      even feel the chair you were sitting on.\" Even some of his      bitterest critics, today, wax sentimental at the mention of his      name. As it turned out, he was a dangerous man, they say. But oh,      you should only have heard his voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Shariati was born in 1933 to a traditional lower-middle-class      family in a northeastern desert town not far from the Turkmen      border. His father was a local religious teacher who founded an      important Islamic center in the city of Mashhad. In many ways      Shariati's thinking would follow a clear line from his father's.      Shariati's father spoke of shaking off superstition and passivity      to make religion into a more active force in Iranian life. He      modeled for Ali the study of Western ideas as well as Islamic      ones: the capacity to swim in two streams, one traditional and      religious, the other modern and rationalistic, in order to speak a      single language to a divided society-perhaps even to his divided      self.","brand":"Riverhead Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302270095589,"sku":"NP9780399573347","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780399573347.jpg?v=1767723647","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/children-of-paradise-isbn-9780399573347","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}