Iranian-American historian and author (born 1949)
Abbas Malekzadeh Milani (Persian: عباس ملکزاده میلانی; born 1949) is an Iranian-American historian, educator, and author. Milani is a visiting professor of political science, and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University. He is also a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.[1][2] In Milani's book, Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran (2004, Mage Publications), he has found evidence that Persian modernism dates back to more than 1,000 years ago.[3]
Biography
Milani was born in Iran to a prosperous family and was sent to California when he was sixteen, graduating from Oakland Technical High School in 1966 after only one year of studies.[4] Milani earned his Bachelor of Arts in political science and economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1970; and his Doctor of Philosophy in political science from the University of Hawaiʻi in 1974.[citation needed]
With his then-girlfriend Fereshteh, Milani returned to Iran to serve as an assistant professor of political science at the National University of Iran from 1975 to 1977.[4] He lectured on Marxist themes veiled in metaphor but was jailed for two years as a political prisoner for "activities against the government".[4] He was a research fellow at the Iranian Center for Social Research from 1977 to 1978. He was also an assistant professor of law and political science at the University of Tehran and a member of the board of directors of Tehran University's Center for International Studies from 1979 to 1986, but after the Iranian Revolution he was not allowed to publish or teach.[4] He left Iran in 1986 during the time of the Iran–Iraq War for the United States, and his son Hamid and his wife Fereshteh followed.[4]
Returning to California, Milani was appointed professor of History and Political Science as well as chair of the department at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, California.[citation needed] He served as a research fellow at the Institute of International Studies at University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley).[citation needed]
Milani became a Hoover Institution research fellow in 2001 and left Notre Dame de Namur for Stanford University in 2002.[4] He is currently the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University.
Political activities
Milani embraced Marxism–Leninism during his youth and was a member of a Maoist underground cell that was uncovered by Iranian security forces in 1975.[5] He was subsequently jailed at Evin Prison, and became disillusioned with revolutionary politics. His eventual ideology has been described as neoconservative.[6] In July 2009, Milani appeared in a United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing amidst 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, and called for imposing "multilateral and crippling sanctions" on Iranians.[7] He also advised the congressmen not to support the military invasion of Iran because it would not politically contribute to the American goal of regime change.[7] Shortly afterward, Iranian prosecutors in the post-election trials built a case against the defendants by connecting them to Milani, mentioning him by name in the official indictment.[7] Hamid Dabashi criticized Milani for throwing monkey wrenches at Green Movement of Iran by supporting foreign intervention instead of grassroots democracy in Iran.[7]
Personal life
Milani separated from his first wife, Fereshteh Davaran, in 1988.[8] He lives on Stanford campus with his second wife, Jean Nyland, who is chair of Notre Dame de Namur's psychology department.[4]
