IRAN: A Country Study

By Helen Chapin Metz This volume is one in a series of books prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under the Country Studies—Area Handbook Program. Most books in the series deal with a particular foreign country, describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national security systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural factors. Each study is written by a multidisciplinary team of social scientists. The authors seek to provide a basic understanding of the observed society, striving for a dynamic rather than a static portrayal. Particular attention is devoted to the people who make up the society, their origins, dominant beliefs and values, their common interests and the issues on which they are divided, the nature and extent of their involvement with national institutions, and their attitudes toward each other and toward their social system and political order. FOURTH EDITION (1989)