1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910796521803321

Autore

Shannon Matthew K. <1983->

Titolo

Losing hearts and minds : American-Iranian relations and international education during the Cold War / / Matthew K. Shannon

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, [New York] : , : Cornell University Press, , 2017

©2017

ISBN

1-5017-0970-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (pages cm)

Disciplina

371.8299155073

Soggetti

Iranian students - United States - History - 20th century

Educational exchanges - Iran - History - 20th century

Educational exchanges - United States - History - 20th century

United States Relations Iran

Iran Relations United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 2017.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: EDUCATION BETWEEN IRAN AND THE WEST -- 1 THE FOUNDATION -- 2 THE WINDOW -- 3 THE YOUTH -- 4 THE BOOM -- 5 THE RECKONING -- Conclusion: THE INTERNATIONALISMS OF THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Matthew K. Shannon provides readers with a reminder of a brief and congenial phase of the relationship between the United States and Iran. In Losing Hearts and Minds, Shannon tells the story of an influx of Iranian students to American college campuses between 1950 and 1979 that globalized U.S. institutions of higher education and produced alliances between Iranian youths and progressive Americans. Losing Hearts and Minds is a narrative rife with historical ironies. Because of its superpower competition with the USSR, the U.S. government worked with nongovernmental organizations to create the means for Iranians to train and study in the United States. The stated goal of this initiative was to establish a cultural foundation for the official relationship and to provide Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with educated elites to administer an ambitious program of socioeconomic development.



Despite these goals, Shannon locates the incubation of at least one possible version of the Iranian Revolution on American college campuses, which provided a space for a large and vocal community of dissident Iranian students to organize against the Pahlavi regime and earn the support of empathetic Americans. Together they rejected the Shah's authoritarian model of development and called for civil and political rights in Iran, giving unwitting support to the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran.