Progressive Commentary Hour - 08/26/13

A special investigation into the modern history and culture of Iran and its geopolitical standing in the Middle East

Fariba Amini is a freelance writer and journalist who writes regularly on Iranian history and human and women’s rights. Her father was the mayor of Tehran, a member of the ruling National Front party, and the personal attorney and close friend to the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, who was deposed by a US-British led coup in 1953. She has written and edited several books including “Faces of the Most Successful Iranian Americans” that was published by the U.S. State Department, “Letters from Ahmad Abad: Mossadeq’s Letters to Noss-rah-toll-lah Ah-meen-ee,”  and “Little Black Fish” -- a translation of children’s stories by one of Iran’s most famous story tellers, Samad Bay-rang-ee.  Fariba has degrees from George Mason University and a masters in history from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences in Paris.

Prof. Tom Ricks is a retired and distinguished professor who is now an independent scholar in Modern Palestinian and Iranian society and cultural history.  In the past he has served on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania, Villanova, Georgetown and Birzelt University in the West Bank, Palestine.  He has published and edited numerous, books, translations and peer reviewed articles during his teaching career starting in 1974.   In the 1960s he served in the Peace Corps in Iran and is an expert on the life and work of Howard Baskerville, an American teacher who died alongside the democratic Constitutionalists during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in the beginning of the twentieth century. Dr. Ricks received his doctorate in Middle East History from Indian University and continues to travel to Palestine yearly to teach at Birzelt University.