Written amid the political fallout and 'war on terror' following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York—Dabashi's adopted city—in 2001, Iran: A People Interrupted offers an insider's insight into the Iranian psyche. Exploring more than 200 years of Iran's cultural history, the book shows how Iranian poets, writers, and thinkers have always reflected the people's long struggle against both foreign and domestic tyranny. Dabashi weaves in his own stories of growing up under the Shah of Iran and the Islamic Revolution as he explains the profoundly anti-colonial ideology of a twenty-first century Iran determined to forge modernity on its own terms.