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Pahlavi Iran's Relations with Africa

Pahlavi Iran's Relations with Africa

Pahlavi Iran's Relations with Africa

Cultural and Political Connections in the Cold War
Robert Steele, Austrian Academy of Sciences
June 2024
Available
Hardback
9781009473149
$130.00
USD
Hardback
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eBook

    This book presents the first comprehensive study of Iran's complex relationship with Africa during the late Pahlavi era. While many studies of Iran's foreign relations during the Cold War present Iranian policy as fully aligned with the United States, Robert Steele reveals Iran as an independent actor capable of forging its own path, and shows that Africa was central to Iran's economic policy and security strategy during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Africa was where the shah sought allies to balance the radicalism of Nasser, often through Iranian aid, customers for Iranian oil and potential sources of uranium. Bolstered by the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in 1971 and the oil price hike of 1973, Steele also shows how the shah saw an opportunity for his Iran to play a leading role in the Indian Ocean, revealing the central place of Africa in Iran's global strategy.

    • Develops a richer understanding of Iran's global interactions beyond its relations with the West
    • Reveals new information about the diplomatic history of the late Pahlavi period through previously underused primary source materials
    • Offers an original contribution to discourse on the Cold War from the perspective of countries of the Global South

    Product details

    June 2024
    Hardback
    9781009473149
    356 pages
    229 × 152 × 21 mm
    0.686kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Introduction
    • Part I. Establishing Relations (c. 1957–1970):
    • 1. Iran, Egypt and the spectre of nasserism
    • 2. Iran, North Africa and Islamic solidarity
    • 3. 'Creating influence and dialogue with the African continent', 1960–1968
    • 4. Establishing ties with apartheid South Africa
    • Part II. Forming an Africa Policy (1971–1975):
    • 5. North Africa, Islam and the great civilisation
    • 6. Trouble in the horn and soviet encroachment
    • 7. Iran and West Africa
    • 8. Distributing the oil wealth: Africa and Iranian aid
    • Part III. Africa and Pahlavi Iran's Grand Strategy (1976–1979):
    • 9. Iran and Senegal: building a special relationship in Africa, 1975–1979
    • 10. Southern Africa: the politics of race and oil
    • 11. Iran, the Ogaden war and African security in the late 1970s
    • Conclusion
    • References
    • Index.
      Author
    • Robert Steele , Austrian Academy of Sciences

      Robert Steele is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Iranian Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of The Shah's Imperial Celebrations of 1971: Nationalism, Culture and Politics in Late Pahlavi Iran (2020), and co-editor of Iran and Global Decolonisation: Politics and Resistance After Empire (2023).