Ervand Abrahamian

Ervand Abrahamian (born 1940) is an Iranian-American historian of the Middle East.

He is Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is widely regarded as one of the leading historians of modern Iran.

Ervand Vahan Abrahamian was born in 1940 in Tehran to Armenian parents.

His thesis was titled "Social Bases of Iranian Politics: The Tudeh Party, 1941-53."

Abrahamian has stated that his "understanding of Iran [was] ... most shaped [by] the oil crisis of 1951-53 culminating in the coup."

He attended three grades at the Mehr School in Tehran and was later sent off to Rugby School (1954-59), a prestigious boarding school in England.

Abrahamian was an activist and a member of the Confederation of Iranian Students — National Union (CISNU) that opposed the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the 1960s and 1970s.

He received his BA from Oxford University in 1963.

He mainly studied European history with Keith Thomas.

He then moved to New York City, where he studied at Columbia University and received his first MA in 1966.

In 1967 Abrahamian was engaged to Helen Mary Harbison, the daughter of late historian E. Harris Harbison.

He received a second MA from Oxford in 1968.

Abrahamian obtained a PhD from Columbia in 1969.

As of 1976, he was one of the vice chairpersons of the Committee for Artistic and Intellectual Freedom in Iran (CAIFI), a "minor front" of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

Abrahamian is a naturalized American citizen.

He is known to his friends as "Jed".

In 1983 he told The New York Times that he has an "independent Marxist point of view."

Christoph Marcinkowski wrote that Abrahamian's publications "feature more or less the left-wing political perspective of their author – especially in terms of socio-political and socio-economic analysis."

He has been influenced by Marxist historians Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm, E. P. Thompson and others.

He has called Thompson a "towering figure for a number of reasons — not just for historians of Iran, but also for Marxist historians throughout the world."

He is generally sympathetic towards the Tudeh Party.

Werner has described Abrahamian as a "vivid chronicler of the history of the Iranian Left, defying any attempt to view twentieth-century Iran exclusively through an Islamicate lens."

In a 1986 he objected that The New York Times obituary of Loy W. Henderson did not mention his role in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, which he described as "probably his most important contribution."

He wrote to the Times: "Few ambassadors have so decisively changed the course of a country's history. What is more, he set a State Department precedent by permitting secret agents to use the embassy compound to carry out the coup. Your oversight would have amused George Orwell; it certainly would not have surprised him."

In a preface to his 1989 book, Abrahamian describes himself as "a sceptic by intellectual training; a democratic socialist by political preference; and, as far as religious conviction is concerned, an agnostic on most days — on other days, an atheist."

In 2006 he described Iran as a "third world power."

In 2007 Abrahamian called the theory of the US government being behind the September 11 attacks "absurd."

He compared it to claims of Iran supporting anti-US Sunni insurgents in Iraq, calling the latter "just not possible."

Abrahamian opined that if the US conducts airstrikes on Iran and triggers a war, it would last 30 to 100 years.

In 2017 he noted that the "gradual but consistent shift to the right in recent years naturally erodes this welfare state and thereby undermines the social basis of the regime."

He has described the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) as a "mystical cult."

As of 2019, he is married to Mary Nolan, Professor Emerita of History at New York University (NYU).

He has two children, Emma and Rafi.

Abrahamian has formerly taught at Princeton University, New York University and Oxford University.

However, he has spent most of his career at the City University of New York (CUNY).

He is currently Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of CUNY.

His research interests include the history and politics of the Middle East, primarily Iran.

He regularly comments on Iran's politics and economy, foreign relations of Iran, including Iran–United States relations.

Abrahamian is considered an authority on Iranian opposition movements, including the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK).

He has appeared as a guest on BBC Persian, Charlie Rose, Worldfocus, Amanpour & Company, Democracy Now!, Lou Dobbs Tonight, and other series and channels.