Bio
Robin Wright
Robin Wright is a journalist and foreign policy analyst. Since October 2010, she has been a joint senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. During her fellowship, she will work on two books, Jihad Against the Jihad and The Iran Primer, the latter of which is about the thinkers and trends that will define the future of the Islamic world over the next decade.
Wright has reported from more than a 140 countries on six continents for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Sunday Times of London, CBS News and the Christian Science Monitor. Her foreign tours include the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and several years as a roving foreign correspondent. Wright has covered a dozen wars and several revolutions and most recently covered U.S. foreign policy for the Washington Post.
Among her many awards, Wright has received the U.N. Correspondent's Gold Medal, the National Magazine Award for reportage from Iran in The New Yorker, and the Overseas Press Club Award for "best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initiative" for coverage of African wars. She has also been the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant. Wright has been a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Brookings Institution, Yale University, Duke University, Stanford University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. She lectures extensively around the United States and has appeared on programs on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and PBS.
Wright's books include The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran, Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam, Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World and In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade. She received both her master's and bachelor's degrees from the University of Michigan.
Encyclopædia Britannica Article
- Iran
Country, Middle East, southwestern Asia. Area: 636,374 sq mi (1,648,200 sq km). Population (2009 est.): 74,196,000. Capital: Tehran. Persians constitute the largest ethnic group; other ethnic groups include Azerbaijanians, Kurds, Lurs, Bakhtyari, and Baloch. Languages: Persian (Farsi; official), numerous others. Religions: Islam (official; predominantly Shi'ite); also Zoroastrianism. Currency: rial. Iran occupies a high plateau, rising higher than 1,500 feet (460 metres) above sea level, and is surrounded largely by mountains. More than half of its surface area consists of salt deserts and other wasteland. About one-tenth of its land is arable, and another one-fourth is suitable for grazing. Iran's rich petroleum reserves account for about one-tenth of world reserves and are the basis of its economy. It is a unitary Islamic republic with one legislative house and several oversight bodies dominated by clergy. The head of state and government is the president, but supreme authority rests with the rahbar (leader), a ranking cleric. Human habitation in Iran dates to some 100,000 years ago, but recorded history began with the Elamites c. 3000 BCE. The Medes flourished from c. 728 but were overthrown in 550 by the Persians, who were in turn conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE. The Parthians (see Parthia) created an empire that lasted from 247 BCE to 226 CE, when control passed to the Sasanian dynasty. Various Muslim dynasties ruled from the 7th century. In 1501 the Safavid dynasty was established and lasted until 1736. The Qajar dynasty ruled from 1796, but in the 19th century the country was economically controlled by the Russian and British empires. Reza Khan (see Reza Shah Pahlavi) seized power in a coup (1921). His son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi alienated religious leaders with a program of modernization and Westernization and was overthrown in 1979; Shi'ite cleric Ruhollah Khomeini then set up an Islamic republic, and Western influence was suppressed. The destructive Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s ended in a stalemate. Since the 1990s the government has gradually moved to a more liberal conduct of state affairs.
- Iran on britannica.com
© 2010 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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