Ervand Abrahamian - Oil Crisis in Iran: From Nationalism to Coup DEtat

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Ervand Abrahamian 2021

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First published 2021

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ISBN 978-1-108-83749-1 Hardback

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For Ali and Heda

This new FRUS volume contains 375 documents totaling some 1,000 pages. It includes extensive cables, reports, notes, minutes, and memoranda not only from the State Department and the US Embassy, but also from the US Cabinet, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Council (NSC) especially its annual and periodic National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs). Not surprisingly, the volume provides a wealth of information on the politics of this period especially on the US involvement in Iran.

Transliteration requires some explanation since few agree on a standard system. The name Mossadeq is a case in point. The State Department tended to spell his name sometimes as Mossadeq, sometimes as Mossadegh, sometimes as Musaddiq, and sometimes as Mosadeq. The British Foreign Office preferred Musaddiq; the New York Times Mossadegh; Time Mosadeq; and the London Times Moussadek. They were not always consistent. Throughout the book I have modified the systems developed by the Library of Congress and the International Journal of Middle East Studies. I have dispensed with diacritical marks; substituted o and e for equivalent sounds in English; used the backwards apostrophe () for the letter eyn , and e rather than i for ezafeh ; and, most important, adopted spelling that has become standardized through the mainstream media Tehran, rather than Teheran, Mashed rather than Mashhad, Isfahan rather than Esfehan, Hussein rather than Husayn; and Khomeini rather Khomeyni. Hopefully, readers will read this preface before nit picking.

I would like to thank Alice Stoakley for editing the manuscript, as well as Maria Marsh, Daniel Brown, Natasha Whelan, Atifa Jiwa, and Raghavi Govindane for guiding it through the production process at Cambridge University Press.