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Persepolis: The Story of an Iranian Childhood
by Marjane Satrapi

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/869979.Persepolis_The_Story_of_an_Iranian_Childhood?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Persepolis: The Story of an Iranian Childhood" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179059566m/869979.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/869979.Persepolis_The_Story_of_an_Iranian_Childhood?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Persepolis: The Story of an Iranian Childhood</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6238.Marjane_Satrapi">Marjane Satrapi</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1222690?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars I am as middle class (we call it affectionately, the "poor rich" where I live.) I am intellectual. I am like Richard Rodriquez and bellhooks because education took me away from my roots, but gave me who I am today.
 
 So, how could Iranian middle class intellectuals and professionals in the late 1970s have been so different than me and my family? For the young, under the Shah, there was a strong and progressive, very Western group of middle class Iranians. Just like me and mine.
 
 So, how could these people have allowed the "revolution" in Iran to become a "devolution?" The question bothered me all the time. Under the Raygun (Reagan)administration I entertained the possibility that I would have to emigrate for political reasons (ha, and let's just say the thought has cropped up again recently.) 
 
 How was America different from Iran -- no, that is too broad a way to state it. The question on my mind was how does your country become totalitarian, authoritarian, repressive -- and you still live there and didn't resist?
 
 Read Persepolis to find out. Yes, it is a girl's growing up story. Yes, it isn't really about the parents. But when you read it, you can see that great evil can just sneak its way into your life because it comes just a babystep at a time. 
 
 No, the Iranian intellectuals and professionals were not very different from their American counterparts. There is a lesson there, and I hope we learn it before it is too late for us.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/58806?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

drbarb's review
rating:

bookshelves: educateyourself, graphicnovels
recommended for: Americans, women, Republicans
status: Read in January, 2004

I am as middle class (we call it affectionately, the "poor rich" where I live.) I am intellectual. I am like Richard Rodriquez and bellhooks because education took me away from my roots, but gave me who I am today.

So, how could Iranian middle class intellectuals and professionals in the late 1970s have been so different than me and my family? For the young, under the Shah, there was a strong and progressive, very Western group of middle class Iranians. Just like me and mine.

So, how could these people have allowed the "revolution" in Iran to become a "devolution?" The question bothered me all the time. Under the Raygun (Reagan)administration I entertained the possibility that I would have to emigrate for political reasons (ha, and let's just say the thought has cropped up again recently.)

How was America different from Iran -- no, that is too broad a way to state it. The question on my mind was how does your country become totalitarian, authori...more

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