Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir

by Abbas Milani

The author recounts his education in Tehran and San Francisco, his experiences while imprisoned by the Shah, and his impressions of the mullahs who now lead Iran

Genres: Iran, Audiobook, Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Middle East, Biography

263 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1996

About the author

Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a visiting professor in the department of political science. In addition, Dr. Milani is a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S./Iran relations, Iranian cultural, political, and security issues.

Reviews

[Hamideh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. At first i thought it is going to be merely a memoir. Yet it contains analysis, criticism and important historical events. Abbas beautify describes and analyzes people and their habits, although I'm not sure if I agree with all of them as many things have changed since then.

[Shervin R · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice memoir by Abbas Milani. You'll really love it if you know nothing about Iranian culture and the way they raise their children. My favorite part was his jail time in which he meets some of the Islamist activists that eventually come to power a couple of years after that.

[Navid Asmari Saadabad · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was not just a memoir of what the writer has gone through, it is also a collection of an expert’s thoughts on the political changes in Iran, before and after the islamic revolution.
As a person born long after the revolution, my knowledge about the country during Shah’s era and the beginning years of mullahs’ rise was limited to a few books I read and what my older relatives told me. This memoir was like a summary of all those things that I have heard or read about. His analysis illuminates the reasons behind the revolution and how it turned out afterwards.
I copied a few parts of the book that I found very well-written. Every five pages, you will run into such parts. I hope these parts interest you in reading the book.
“Revolutions are, I think, a coagulation of private agendas with public grievances. They are the instinctive acquiescence of a mob, roused and ravaged by resentment and injustice, to the private agendas of their leaders.”
“It was simple and comforting to dismiss the Ayatollah as an aberration, or to blame foreign conspiracies for his rise to power. For me, he became a mirror in which I could see my ignorance of our past and some important aspects of the society I was born into.”
I should confess that I had to look up the meaning of many words as they were not very common English words, but, that’s what makes the sentences so concise and the book an interesting read.

[Cher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Milani was one of my revered professors when I went back to finish my degree. He grew up in upper-class in Tehran, but went to UC Berkeley for college. There, like many other idealists, he fell in with Maoists. This memoir chronicles not just his experiences growing up between two countries, or the evolution of his political thought, but his experiences as a political prisoner during the so called "bloodless" Iranian revolution. My only complaint about this memoir is its brevity. In person, Milani is far more expressive and expansive.

When the whole disaster of nine eleven befell our nation, he and my college held an impromptu and free lecture on the history between the Western and Arab worlds, attempting to explain some of how and why such a thing could occur. He is a magnetic speaker. He predicted the wars in the order they would occur; that the US would be forced to "make a display of strength to the world."

His other works chronicle events and ideas in far greater detail. As an expat, he is conflicted: loving his home country and yet realizing it, under religious reign, has no tolerance for the intelligentsia. What I admire most about his efforts is his devotion to his beliefs in democracy and freedom of expression.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abbas Milani: Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir (1996)

TIMELINE

1948-1964: Tehran (elementary school + 1-yr public school)
1964-1975: USA (Phd in political science in 1974)
1975-1986: Tehran (imprisoned by the Pahlavi regime in November 1976 in Komiteh, released May 1978, became UT professor after 1979 Islamic Revolution)
1986-: USA (San Francisco, CA)

Historical Background

- Green uniform of the Iran Revolutionary Guards
- The Minister of Islamic Guidance in charge of censorship
- Iran experienced a short-lived post WW2 democracy during Pahlavi regime
- Pre WWII French took a premier position whilst post WWII English is the prime language
- Nowruz first day of Iranian new year falling on vernal equinox, quintessential classical Persian ceremony; The haft seen table (the seven “s” items table): haft is seven in Persian / seen is “s” in Persian alphabet
- in the earlier part of the 20th century, there had been an exclusively Jewish ghetto in Tehran where most of the city's Jews lived.
- SAVAK permeates every facet of life in Iran by 1970s but can’t be spoken aloud, referred clandestinely to as it/they/the thing
- 1940s only 1 university in Iran by mid 1970s 150 high learning institutions in the country, spawning diploma mills in Italy/France/Austrai

Abbas Milani

- My parents wedded in June 1939
- I was born in 1948 (probably year-end) in Tehran, the 4th child of a total of 5 w/ brothers & sister (single sister?); he was the only one child by 1986 still living in Iran; one older brother Hossein; underwent circumcision in summer when 12 yrs old, a “belated” later-than-normal operation (done by colonel my uncle)
- born into a prosperous family: father in trade (steel/crystal/paper) having feigned poverty all his life for self-protection; mother from a powerful political family w/ prestige & pedigree including an uncle Deputy Premier;
- an uncle named Colonel, lewd in language full of military profanity and loose in comportment, a rare even rebellious breed in the starchy atmosphere of our family
- another uncle a surgeon who helped my mom w/ her delivery
- upper-class upbringing in Pahlavi Iran; live on a street called Malek Shoaraye Bahar in an upscale neighborhood filled with literary and political luminaries, only a block away from the American embassy
- my favorite, sweetly mad uncle Nasser of 40 when we were children
- went to Madame Marika for elementary school, co-ed institution then, principal and proprietor, Marika, a French lay woman though some teachers are nuns
- In elementary school learned French and starting from the 7th grade or junior high (a public school) switched to English study
- Left for San Francisco 1964.6.14 (onboard a British Airways flight) to study when I was 15 and a half years old ; at the time my brother Hassan was already in San Francisco awaiting and receiving me (Hassan was engineering student + worked for an interior decorator named Robert who was gay the partner Jerry)
- 1 yr high school at Oakland Technical High School (Oakland Tech) + 2 yrs black-dominated community college at Merritt College + UC Berkeley Phd
- Close to son Hamid Milani age 8 (born in 1978) w/ a teddy bear named Fatso; wife emotionally estranged
- Received a PhD in political science in 1974, returned to Tehran, taught at the National University of Iran (now SBU) but was imprisoned by the Pahlavi regime in 1977; became a professor at the University of Tehran (UT) after the 1979 Islamic Revolution

[Shabnam Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book and I recommend it to every Iranian and whoever is interested in Iran's recent history.
Like other books he has, Milani presents his great skill in this book as a true historian by telling stories about the recent history of Iran none-judgmentally. The reader can trust especially when different interpretations of an even is written as part of the story. He offers his take from the event based on his personal experience which is usually with deep analysis that makes it reliable. He also provides what others thought of the event very unbiased. The reader's intelligent is respected by him and reader can draw her/his conclusion.
I was 7 years old when the revolution happened. This book along with other books of Milani and books written by Azar Nafisi have helped me to learn a great deal about what happened in my motherland. This is how memoirs and non-fiction stories should be written.
I am writing my memoir and can't thank Abbas Milani and Azar Nafisi enough for everything I have learned from the authentic source of knowledge they have shared in their books.
As an Iranian woman, my memoir will have a different approach and will offer stories about aftermath of the revolution with little comparison to before since I was a child. To me, understanding the root cause of the problems would not be possible without reading these books. I am so thankful to know these great Iranian people who bravely share their stories and let the other Iranian generations and people around the globe know more about what we have inherited.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very moving. I cannot help but relate my reading of the book to some Persian people I have known through my life, be particularly one friend. The exile, the one who would go back to a place that seems to my sensibility unstable and dangerous. How could someone return, and then stay? And what is becoming of my own country and culture - how easily people embrace extremism and intolerance.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Giving insight into life in Iran before, during and after the revolution, this memoir was a fascinating read that gives the reader a glimpse not only of the author's life both in his homeland and in exile, but also offers interesting analysis of the politics and manifold changes of the revolution and what led up to it.

[Val Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book, written by a native Iranian who was educated both in Iran and in the United States. His story occurred during pivotal times in the Middle East, including during the reigns of Shah Reza Pahlavi and the Ayatollah Khomeini. He experienced massive changes in the relative freedom and restriction of the Persian people and was imprisoned for being a radical. I found it fascinating to hear his comparisons of life here and there. I listened to this book as an audio and thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Roja - روجا · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've listen to the book. with audio books I need to listen more than once . I know Mr. Milani as an intellectual, an elite. he tells his life story in the book. I recommend the book if someone is interested to know more about Iran .

[Daan Bultje · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik weet niet wat het is, maar hoewel er serieuze thema’s over leven (en overleven) in Iran aan bod komen, wordt het allemaal vrij terloops verteld. Daardoor werd ik niet echt gegrepen door het verhaal.

[Ginger Perry]

over rated

[Isa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I’m not a fan of the author due to his dislike of Islam, he paints an intriguing picture of what it is like to live in different social & political eras. Not too long of a read/listen.

[Ensiform · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir, told in sometimes disjointed thematic fragments, of Milani’s childhood in Iran, his imprisonment at the hands of the Pahlavi regime, his opposition to the Islamic Republic, and his eventual “permanent exile” in the United States. It’s an engrossing series of vignettes, subtle and understated, which left me wanting more information at times.

Milani has an obvious love of all things Persian, but he also repudiates many things Iran has come to stand for, especially religious zealotry. Like many who embraced Marxist ideology as a youth, then rejected it, he sees the folly of killing or dying for ideas; whether that makes him more or less noble I don’t know. The memoir is especially interesting when he talks of his attempts to fit, and find love, in American culture; I would have liked even more anecdotal remembrances of this reconciliation of cultures.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Persian man is enthralled with the revolution only to find that the outcome is worse than the political climate that came before it. Interesting detail on what Tehran was and became, and on family life from a male's perspective. Women are not named other than his mother and his love interests.