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Abbas Milani | |
|---|---|
| عباس ملکزاده میلانی | |
 Milani in 2010 | |
| Born | Abbas Malekzadeh Milani عباس ملکزاده میلانی 1949 (age 75–76) |
| Citizenship | Iranian, American |
| Spouse(s) | Fereshteh Davaran (?–1988; divorced), Jean Nyland |
| Children | 1 |
| Academic background | |
| Education | |
| Thesis | Ideology and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution: The Political Economy of the Ideological Currents of the Constitutional Revolution (1975) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Political science andIranian studies |
| Institutions | |
Abbas Malekzadeh Milani (Persian:عباس ملکزاده میلانی; born 1949) is an Iranian-American historian, educator, and author. Milani is a visiting professor ofpolitical science, and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of theIranian Studies program atStanford University. He is also aresearch fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project atStanford University'sHoover Institution.[1][2] In Milani's book,Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran (2004, Mage Publications), he has found evidence that Persianmodernism dates back to more than 1,000 years ago.[3]
Milani was born in Iran to a prosperous family and was sent toCalifornia when he was sixteen, graduating fromOakland Technical High School in 1966 after only one year of studies.[4] Milani earned hisBachelor of Arts in political science andeconomics from theUniversity of California, Berkeley in 1970; and hisDoctor of Philosophy in political science from theUniversity of Hawaiʻi in 1974.[citation needed]
With his then-girlfriend Fereshteh, Milani returned to Iran to serve as an assistant professor of political science at theNational University of Iran from 1975 to 1977.[4] He lectured onMarxist themes veiled in metaphor but was jailed for two years as apolitical prisoner for "activities against the government".[4] He was a research fellow at theIranian Center for Social Research from 1977 to 1978. He was also an assistant professor of law and political science at theUniversity of Tehran and a member of the board of directors of Tehran University's Center for International Studies from 1979 to 1986, but after theIranian Revolution he was not allowed to publish or teach.[4] He left Iran in 1986 during the time of theIran–Iraq War for theUnited States, and his son Hamid and his wife Fereshteh followed.[4]
Returning to California, Milani was appointed professor ofHistory and Political Science as well as chair of the department atNotre Dame de Namur University inBelmont, California.[citation needed] He served as a research fellow at the Institute of International Studies at University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley).[citation needed]
Milani became aHoover Institution research fellow in 2001 and left Notre Dame de Namur for Stanford University in 2002.[4] He is currently the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University.
Milani’s profile gained widespread international recognition following the publication ofThe Shah in 2011, a work that received universal acclaim. Reviewers praised its depth of scholarship and Milani's impartiality in addressing such a controversial topic, withDavid C. Acheson ofWashington Times describing it as "impressive" in its research and analysis. Acheson further concluded thatThe Shah is "likely to be the definitive biography of its subject", citing its extensive use of sources, notes, interviews, and correspondence as evidence of its scholarly rigor and thoroughness.[5][6][7]
Since 2011, Milani shifted the focus of his research to the era ofReza Shah.[citation needed]
Milani embracedMarxism–Leninism during his youth and was a member of aMaoistunderground cell that was uncovered by Iranian security forces in 1975.[8] He was subsequently jailed atEvin Prison, and became disillusioned with revolutionary politics. His eventual ideology has been described asneoconservative.[9] In July 2009, Milani appeared in aUnited States House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing amidst2009 Iranian presidential election protests, and called for imposing "multilateral and cripplingsanctions" on Iranians.[10] He also advised the congressmen not to support the military invasion of Iran because it would not politically contribute to the American goal ofregime change.[10] Shortly afterward, Iranian prosecutors in thepost-election trials built a case against the defendants by connecting them to Milani, mentioning him by name in the official indictment.[10]Hamid Dabashi criticized Milani for undermining theGreen Movement of Iran by supporting foreign intervention instead of grassroots democracy in Iran.[10]
Milani separated from his first wife, Fereshteh Davaran, in 1988.[11] He lives on Stanford campus with his second wife, Jean Nyland, who is chair of Notre Dame de Namur's psychology department.[4]
Hamid & Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and Co-Director of the Iran Democracy Project at Hoover Institution
