Street Politics - by Asef Bayat (Paperback)

About the Book

The story of a grassroots political movement that flourished throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Book Synopsis

In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, an active political movement emerged on the streets of Iran's largest cities. Poor people began to construct their own communities on unused urban lands, creating an infrastructure--roads, electricity, running water, garbage collection, and shelters--all their own. As the Iranian government attempted to evict these illegal settlers, they resisted--fiercely and ultimately successfully. This is the story of their economic and political strategies.

Review Quotes

"Focusing on the immediate prerevolutionary period and the first decade of the Islamic Republic, Bayat discusses the economic and political strategies of 'ordinary'[Iranian] people, mainly in Tehran.... He demonstrates that, for these people at least, the populist revolution did not bring about the changes that they needed or wanted." -- "Choice"

About the Author

Asef Bayat is associate professor of sociology at The American University in Cairo.