Event

As tensions between the United States and Iran continue, the controversy about the Iranian nuclear program is frequently cited as a central area of disagreement between the two countries. But is this, in fact, the core of the issue? Historian John Ghazvinian explores the broader story of Iran's nuclear program, and discusses the history of US-Iran relations — situating the nuclear disagreement within the context of 40 years of US-Iran tensions.

John Ghazvinian is an author, historian and former journalist, specializing in the history of US-Iran relations. He also serves as the Executive Director of the Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania. His latest book, America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present (Knopf, 2021), is a comprehensive new survey of the bilateral relationship, based on years of archival research in both Iran and the United States, which he has been working on since 2008. He is also author of Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil (Harcourt, 2007), as well as coeditor of American and Muslim Worlds before 1900 (Bloomsbury, 2020). He has written for such publications as Newsweek, The Nation, the Sunday Times and the Huffington Post, and has taught modern Middle East history at a number of colleges and universities in the Philadelphia area.