Robinson Professors

Shaul Bakhash

Shaul Bakhash specializes in the history of the modern Middle East with a special interest in the history of Iran. He received his B. A. and M. A. from Harvard University and his D. Phil from Oxford University. He is the author of Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy and Reform Under the Qajars, 1858-1896; The Politics of Oil and Revolution in Iran; and Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic  Revolution.   His articles have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and books, as well as in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. He worked for many years as a journalist in Iran, writing for Tehran-based Kayhan Newspapers as well as for the London Times, the Financial Times, and the Economist. Before coming to George Mason University, he taught at Princeton University. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and held fellowships at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton and other research centers. He serves on the Advisory Board of Human Rights Watch/Middle East and the editorial boards of the Journal of Democracy and the Middle East Journal.

Fall Courses 2009

HIST 387: Modern Iraq

Iraq has had a turbulent history ever since it was carved out of three provinces of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. In this course, we will examine the politics of Iraq under the British mandate, as an independent state under the monarchy, and as a republic after the revolution of 1958, with special emphasis on the social composition of Iraq's people and of its ruling elites; the ideologies that shaped these elites; and the various attempts to create a cohesive nation out of Iraq's disparate ethnic and religious communities. We will study in some detail the Iraqi revolution of 1958 and its legacy; the rule of the Baath and Saddam Hussein; Iraq as a player in the region and the international system; and the American invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. (TR 12:00-1:15p.m.)

HNRS 240: Reading the Past: Political Islam

The destruction of the twin towers at the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11, the U. S. government's "war on terror," and America's war in Iraq have focused considerable attention on the Islamic world and on what is often termed "political Islam" or "Islamic radicalism.. This course is designed to help students place these developments in an historical context. It examines the relationship of politics and religion in the Islamic world in the past, competing interpretations of politics in the Islamic world today, the organization and various uses of terror for political purposes, intellectual and political attempts at democratic reform in the Islamic world, and the different ways in which Western scholars and commentators have defined and understood "political Islam." (TR 3:00-4:15 p.m.)

Spring Courses 2010

HNRS 230: Cross-Cultural Perspectives: Middle Eastern Lives

This course seeks to give students an understanding of modern Middle Eastern history, culture, and society through the reading of individual autobiographies and biographies of statesmen, intellectuals, women, and “ordinary” people. (TR 3:00-4:15pm)

HIST 460: Modern Iran

This course will examine a number of themes in the history of modern Iran: The evolving structure of the state and its institutions; the role of different social groups and classes; state power and opposition to the state; politics as expressed in Islamic and secular ideologies; the role of the great powers, and forms of Iranian response to the Western challenge; and the impact of the Constitution Revolution of 1906 and the Islamic Revolution of 1979. (TR 1:30-2:45 p.m.)