Iran Rising: The Survival and Future of the Islamic Republic, by Amin Saikal. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019. 326 pp. ISBN: 9780691175478

Distinguished Professor Amin Saikal is a prominent Australian Middle Eastern politics scholar and media commentator, so his views on the Islamic Republic of Iran reach a wide audience. His view of Iran is one of an outsider, which entails certain limitations in terms of lived experience and cultural knowledge, but he is a native Persian speaker as well as an experienced researcher with first-hand experience of Iran. Saikal’s writing style and choice of content bridges his academic specialisation and extensive media and political commentary experience. Iran Rising thus has less theoretically sophisticated aims and a wider scope than a purely academic work, but seeks to offer a credible and well-informed portrait of the last four decades of Iranian politics, especially foreign policy.