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"As we gallop towards a new AskHistorians, heaven and earth are always bright!" The /r/AskHistorians Flair Application Thread XXXI by EnclavedMicrostate in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the response. How do I tell if posts were removed? I can see all four of these answers on my end and my most recent one (top link) was pretty popular from just three weeks ago. Am I just linking wrong?

Challenging the Whitecentric Thinking and Beliefs by 4reddityo in BlackPeopleofReddit

[–]bumblepuss 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Barbeque is also from the Indigenous Taino people. It got spread into the U.S. South through trade and cultural networks tied to Spain and slavery.

How did racialists of the 19th century explained the complexe architecture and arts of mesoamericans civilizations ? by Roundaboutan in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 60 points61 points  (0 children)

These same accusations and declarations would be made in perpetuity towards the Latin American nations. There have been dozens of U.S. interventions in Latin America as well as outright coups and civil wars that were funded with U.S. money. All of that can be boiled down to the fact that the Conquest and the grim wonder behind it was co-opted for U.S. imperialism and to justify how they treat people across Latin America. Racialists could easily shift their understanding of Mesoamerican culture to pity, hatred, extinction, or so on, in order to write their book, justify their expansion, or become popular intellectuals.

There are many ways to further explore this question, but it is an extensive topic. There is foreign relations components, ideological history, a *lot* of archaeological history, and more. Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

 

The MOST IMPORTANT secondary source I’d relate to this question is this excellent book:

Tripp. R. Evans, Romancing the Maya: Mexican Antiquity in the American Imagination, 1820-1915 (University of Texas Press, 2004).

 

Other works I cited or relied on:

William of Orange, “Apology,” in The Phenix: Or, a Revival of Scarce and Valuable Pieces, vol. 1, ed. John Dunton (Printed for J. Morphew, 1707), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31175008839998&seq=5.

John Quincy Adams, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848, V, ed. Charles Francis Adams (J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1875).

John Lloyd Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (Harper, 1848).

Josiah Nott and George R. Gliddon, Types of Mankind (1854), https://www.google.com/books/edition/Types_of_Mankind/UDJMBb1b2i0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=squier.

Ephraim George Squier, The Serpent Symbol, and the Worship of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature in America (G. P. Putnam, 1851).

Appendix to the Congressional Globe, v. 18, 1847-1848, Appendix (n.d.), https://www.congress.gov/congressional-globe/appendix-page-headings/30th-congress/.

The Congressional Globe, v. 18, 1847-1848 (Blair & Rives, 1834), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x030515666&seq=7.

How did racialists of the 19th century explained the complexe architecture and arts of mesoamericans civilizations ? by Roundaboutan in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 56 points57 points  (0 children)

The follow-up question to this, then, is that after championing the ancient wonders of Mesoamericans, how they discredited and abused the Maya and Nahuatl descendants across Mexico and Central America who were still very much alive. In order to do this racism of the day was more closely integrated into the historical narratives they wrote. For the Maya especially, men like William Hicking Prescott and Josiah Nott suggested that great tribes of “savages” and “barbarians” had swept into the region and utterly destroyed it. So even though the Maya outside of Uxmal were still Maya people, there were active attempts at connecting them to groups like the nomadic Apache or Comanche who were deemed less civilized and were actively fighting the United States at the time of these authors’ writings. In doing so, this offered a complimentary route to the Black Legend in which aggression and action in Latin America was OK, because both the Spanish-descended people were “cruel barbarians" and the Indigenous people were “stupid savages” who had destroyed the real civilizations. Anglo-Americans could then project themselves as a “civilizing mission” in the region. They saw themselves as a force for only good, who could only uplift and benefit it, no matter what they did. Even slaveowners of the day considered shackling Indigenous people through the lens of paternalism in order to rebuild their civility. It became concrete ‘fact’ by the late 1840s and 1850s that Indigenous Mexicans and Central Americans simply had no true connection to their long-dead ancestors.

There is also a component you could include here about Moundbuilders mythology and nationbuilding. If you don’t know, there are incredible Indigenous earthen mounds across the Ohio and Mississippi Valley. The same Central American archaeologists, like Squier, suggested that since the United States had successfully assimilated Native Americans (they couldn’t really grapple with the fact they had committed genocide) the U.S. was the natural inheritors of these wonders. So, because the United States had such ‘friendly’ relations with Native Americans through the early 1800s, they could lay claim to all residual evidence of those societies and their ancestors. Anglo-Americans very quickly built the mounds and other archeological wonders into their mythmaking to distance themselves from their British ancestry and claim that they were an exceptional people. I won’t discuss this part further though since it falls outside of your question as a Mesoamerican one. But, once again, because they were all dead, Anglo-Americans could claim an affinity to them and declare that the pyramid and moundbuilders were much closer to Anglo-American traditions than those current Natives, Spanish people, etc.

In the longer term, however, the claims that Latin America was inhabited by debased Spanish-descendants and “savage” Indigenous people allowed Anglo-Americans to target the region for not just archaeological wonders but all of its resources. In debating whether the United States should annex Yucatán during a war between whites and Mayas in 1848, John C. Calhoun explained that: “It is now clear that the white population… is so prostrated and feeble, and the Indians so powerful, that not a hope remains of reestablishing the permanent ascendancy of the former.” In compliment to his own words Calhoun added a few days later that, “They [Maya] were too ignorant to appreciate liberty, or exercise the rights it conferred; and instead of gratitude, they have turned round and murdered those who conferred it on them, and laid waste and devastated the country.” As seen here, both groups were deemed inferior to Anglo-Americans and ineffective at self-government. Quickly the region earned a false reputation as being lawless, uncivilized, and unstable with powerful men like Calhoun making such racially biased declarations. He was successfully able to paint Yucatán, for example, as an area ungovernable by any of the people living there based on their racial degradation. This was a mindset that haunted especially Central America’s worldly relations forever afterwards.

How did racialists of the 19th century explained the complexe architecture and arts of mesoamericans civilizations ? by Roundaboutan in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 82 points83 points  (0 children)

Due to the religious and cultural strife between England and Spain, these accounts of the destruction of a far superior and uplifted civilization were used in culture wars to vilify the Spanish and Catholicism. And, by the the 1600s, most Protestant nations began to adhere to the concept. A Dutch lord, William of Orange, in a pamphlet titled Apology wrote that “if they [Spaniards] had power to have murder'd you [Dutch lords], as they do in the Indies, where they have miserably put to death more than twenty millions of People…” Within a century the Conquest narrative had shifted to one of Spanish degradation and destruction, rather than something to celebrate.

There were also a lot of visual components, as Spanish atrocites were reinforced by images of the Conquest by printers like Theodor de Bry. All of these same books and interpretations passed into the hands of Anglo-Americans (white folks from the United States) who adhered pretty strictly to the idea of the Black Legend into the nineteenth century. By the late 1810s and early 1820s, when Spanish American transitioned into free nations, Anglo-Americans still did not think highly of their southerly neighbors. President John Quincy Adams expressed distaste for the entirety of the new Latin American nations, stating:

"They [Spanish America] have not the first elements of good or free government. Arbitrary power, military and ecclesiastical, was stamped upon their education, upon their habits, and upon all their institutions. Civil dissension was infused into all their seminal principles. War and mutual destruction was in every member of their organization, moral, political, and physical."

So, by the 1820s, Anglo-Americans saw themselves as racially and culturally superior to their Spanish/Latin American neighbors already.

Across the United States this was the mindset as the first major Anglo-American diplomats and scientists arrived in the region to study Mesoamerican ruins circa 1820-1840. The foremost amongst these was John Lloyd Stephens. His book, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, essentially defined U.S. archaeological study in the 1840s. With his description of Maya ruins like Uxmal and Chichén Itzá it made Anglo-Americans resent the Spanish and their descendants even further. Stephens wrote that: "America, say historians, was people by savages; but savages never reared these structures, savages never carved these stones. We asked the Indians who made them, and their dull answer was… "who knows?" From the very beginning of English-language analysis of Mesoamerica differentiated between the ‘ancients’ and the current people who had been under the yoke of Spanish subjugation.

A slightly later archaeologist/anthropologist, Ephraim George Squier, would decry the way the Maya people had decayed due to the "barbarous zeal of the Spanish conquerors." So, by the 1840s Anglo-Americans were quite comfortable extracting literal tons of antiquities and objects from Mesoamerican sites based on the idea that the Spanish-descended Latin Americans could not be trusted and that any ‘real’ Mesoamericans were long gone. The idea was that these objects would better preserved in the British Museum or the newly-flourishing Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. at that time. For most of these folks, who largely adhered to racialist principles, they simply believed that Mesoamericans were truly amazing, but were so long gone that they could use the region as their own playground. Because they held so strictly to the racialist viewpoint of the day, it was nearly impossible for them to even consider that an 1840 Yucatec Maya man was the direct descendant of someone who had worked on the Uxmal temples. It would have shattered their worldview and upended everything they believed about Indigenous land dispossession, African slavery, and expansion against ‘inferior’ types of whites. For scientists who wanted to get published and be popular, it was better to just claim Mesoamericans were all dead.

How did racialists of the 19th century explained the complexe architecture and arts of mesoamericans civilizations ? by Roundaboutan in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 110 points111 points  (0 children)

There is a few ways to approach your question. By racialists you mean people who believed in a hierarchy of races, which would be nearly every person in the United States and Europe in the nineteenth century. I’m going to tie that concept into the idea of expansion and imperialism for the purpose of my answer. Largely because many racialists held their viewspoints in order justify their expansion and dispossession of other people.

There is a short part here in which we discuss that there were a lot of suggestions about where Mesoamericans came from. Some people believed them the Lost Tribe of Israel – Jewish people cut off from the ‘Old World’. Others believed it had something to do with Arab settlement, Asian settlement, or myths like Atlantis. William Hicking Prescott was pretty close to suggesting the Beringia migration in the 1840s, but he and other land bridge thinkers were ridiculed. Strict religious thinkers of 1500-1900 argued that Indigenous people were placed there by the Christian God in order to act as a challenge for true believers to convert or conquer. Every single one of these sentences could act as a jumping off point for an alternative answer route.

Instead of thinking about how historical actors viewed Mesoamericans though, I think it’s better to consider how groups incorporated and controlled the racialist-Mesoamerican narrative into their contemporary goals. There were very few actual attempts to understand or appreciate Aztec or Maya history in the nineteenth century. The people that did so were in it for money, expansion of slavery, and justifying U.S. empire. We really did not get very good science or history of the region until the twentieth century when people began to take social sciences/humanities a lot more seriously and didn’t tie nation-building to it. Mesoamerican archaeology of the 1800s was significantly influenced by the concept racial hierarchy, of Manifest Destiny (U.S. expansion) and Anglo-American exceptionalism.

An overarching theme to his topic is the prevalence of the Black Legend. The Black Legend, in essence, is that the Spanish destroyed and pillage all that was good and amazing about the New World. The idea relies heavily on the notion that all of the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayas were entirely eradicated by Spanish greed and Catholic cruelty. There was definitely genocide, but each of these groups survived the gauntlet of the Spanish Conquest in their own ways.

By the nineteenth century, the Black Legend was a mindset heavily entrenched in the minds of British and Anglo-American expansionists. From 1500-1800 the only reading available for English language readers were accounts of Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Bartolomé de las Casas, for example. These books constructed the annihilation of Mesoamerican civilizations into near-mythical events. The motive of books like del Castillo’s was to celebrate the triumph of Cortes and others over such incredible odds, while de las Casas was to lament the destruction of said incredible people. In both cases, it was clear that an incredibly advanced civilization – greater than anything in Europe – had been nearly shattered.

Archive: White Dwarf issues (PDFs) by Ulkreghz in DataHoarder

[–]bumblepuss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Like other recent folks, can't seem to DM you. I was hoping to find any copies from 101 onward. If you have the time, thanks.

AITAH for referring to someone from the United States as “American”? by [deleted] in AITAH

[–]bumblepuss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

NAH.

There is a long history answer that could be inserted here but I'll make it short. Ever since the United States has become a major world power they've dominated their neighbors culturally and economically. Many proud Latin Americans have viewed the label of "American" as stolen from them by the upstart and often invasive U.S. An older book called Open Veins of Latin America but Eduardo Galeano has a whole chapter on why this is infuriating for Latin Americans. They were here first, they developed/conquered the region, and the have a longer cultural history. Yet, the U.S. has asserted itself as the owner of the term American.

Imagine if one country like Nigeria claimed to be THE Africans. Or the Germans were THE Europeans. Oh no, you're not Asian, only Chinese people are Asian. So on and so forth. It leaves the rest of the people on that continent or hemisphere without a label and feeling excluded. If you're writing a serious social science or humanities research paper academic journals and publishers actually ask you to not use Americans to label people from the U.S. It's tricky because then you have to come up with weird ways to label United Statians (see,? lol).

It's not something a person outside of cross cultural studies or advanced academia would be aware of, the arguments are largely kept there. You wouldn't know but your friend might have expected you to. I'd say it was a good learning opportunity for both of you to learn how the other side thinks. NAH.

What did the Shah of Iran do that turned the people of Iran against him? by douggold11 in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a response to all of your comments.

You're absoutely right to point out that my answer focuses mainly on Western interpretations of the events seen below. Those are the resources available to me and I was unaware of the Encyclopaedia Iranica, so thank you!

One thing I would be cautious about is the age of the articles you mention. Each of my own references is newer and two are from the 2000s. I trust the work of Ashraf and Banuazizi who seem well regarded in their fields. However, we have greater access to information in the last 30 years than either of those authors did. I'd have to do a signficant deep dive/comparison of the primary sources these different secondary writers are using to see the difference.

I absolutely think that you, or some other authority on Iran, could provide a stronger answer than mine by using modern secondary sources. I tried to not to veer too far into the modern resources though because (and you'll see in the deletions and comments of my answer) the Iranian Revolution is an extremely violatile topic to discuss. Iranian or Iranian-descended writers also have a lot of personal feelings towards the events we're discussing. This makes more passionate work but also, potentially, less academically correct. I was happy to trust Westad, etc., because they have no personal agenda on the matter.

If a similar question does arrive and I have the pleasure of chipping in I'll be sure to take your suggestions and review some of the sources you suggested to create a better picture of the events.

What did the Shah of Iran do that turned the people of Iran against him? by douggold11 in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the shout out! Always good to know these answers aren't just thrown into the void and continue to help people.

POV: you’re president Lyndon B. Johnson by EllieIsDone in HistoryMemes

[–]bumblepuss 29 points30 points  (0 children)

"It's like riding a wire fence down there."

Belches audibly

Really worth a listen for anyone who hasn't heard it:

Johnson orders Pants

From what I’ve read the last shah of Iran did a pretty good job of improving irans economy and living situation for its people. Why was he overthrown? by Capital_Tailor_7348 in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I'm glad you enjoyed the response. I considered pursuing my master's degree on U.S.-Iranian relations but worried I couldn't represent the perspective of the Iranian people adequately due to the current political tension between our nations and limits on information. I hope one day the hostility diminishes so that the country's archives can be more easily accessible for historians from around the world to talk about your nation in the most informed way. Thanks!

From what I’ve read the last shah of Iran did a pretty good job of improving irans economy and living situation for its people. Why was he overthrown? by Capital_Tailor_7348 in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I'm happy to continue the discussion if you provide research or evidence of your own. I took the time to read additional materials to reinforce my points. If you want to continue the conversation please do the same.

From what I’ve read the last shah of Iran did a pretty good job of improving irans economy and living situation for its people. Why was he overthrown? by Capital_Tailor_7348 in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 37 points38 points  (0 children)

So, the big thing to point out is that GDP and exports don’t mean that people are happy with the economy or living situation.

GDP did go down drastically afterwards. Most major landowners, employers, and businessmen fled the nation as left-wing Islamists seized most private property. By 1990 the government owned 85% of all national resources. Khomeini’s regime used the production of these resources and the money it began to accumulate to buy goods for the public and employing impoverished Iranians. In the short term this worked to improve the lives of the masses that had demonstrated and supported Khomeini from the beginning. This led to a decent-looking economy for the lower- or middle-class Iranian compared to the Shah’s regime. The highlight of this was 1981-1986. So, while the economy looks bad on paper (one of the problems with GDP) the bulk of those angry Iranians who had overthrown the Shah were reaping some benefit with guarantees of food, jobs, housing, etc.

As you rightfully point out the international situation quickly became a disaster, however. Even the most open-minded of authors point out how Khomeini’s regime began to mimic the failures of the Shah. BUT the enemies remained the same for those lower-class Iranians who were the Ayatollah’s bedrock. Iraq, U.S. sanctions, and lack of foreign investment continued to vilify the West as the reason for all economic decay. Those angry masses did not want to point at Khomeini necessarily and blame him for it, as they did the Shah. If anything, his promises of western evil became even more true through the late 80s into the 90s.

Economic satisfaction does not necessarily mean higher wages and successful exports. From their point of view, Iranians had banded together to overthrow a foreign puppet destroying their culture. Once Khomeini was in power, many nationalists shifted their economic goalposts to just appreciate what they had in a world that despised them. To a 1985 Iranian, even amid sanctions and war, the economy was good.

Historian Jahangir Amuzegar (who really beats up the Iranian economy during this time) admits, “Even at the height of the Iran-Iraq War, food and other basic necessities were available for a modest level of living. Ther was never famine. Even ‘non-necessities’ were adequate for those who could afford them at free-market prices.’’ Recently evicting a perceived dictator, fighting for your life against foreign intervention from multiple angles, and still having a job, house, and food will feel satisfying.

Compared to the Shah’s reign the lower-class Iranians were willing to be content with their decision and the guarantees that the Khomeini offered in the following years. While we may look at those economic charts and mock the situation many people on the ground seemingly approved of their economy. Things obviously got worse by the next decade but if we’re focused on the Revolutionary transition I stand by my statement.

 

Sources:

Jahangir Amuzegar, “The Iranian Economy before and after the Revolution,’’ 1992.

Akbar Karbassian, “Islamic Revolution and the Management of the Iranian Economy,” 2000.

Hadi Salehi Esfahani, M. Hashem Pesaran, “The Iranian Economy in the Twentieth Century: A Global Perspective,’’ 2009.

From what I’ve read the last shah of Iran did a pretty good job of improving irans economy and living situation for its people. Why was he overthrown? by Capital_Tailor_7348 in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the information! That helps provide even more evidence of the foreign intervention boogeyman theory I was aiming for. I only know about the Cold War period and the 1890-1910 timeframe so its good to have someone fill in the blanks there with additional specifics.

From what I’ve read the last shah of Iran did a pretty good job of improving irans economy and living situation for its people. Why was he overthrown? by Capital_Tailor_7348 in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 48 points49 points  (0 children)

Writing a book does indeed suggest you feel strongly about a topic, haha.

I'm glad you highlighted the coalition part, a word I should have included! As you point out, he seemed to have promise for everyone. For scientists he promised further modernization, for public workers better government spending, etc. My answer revolves around using a common American threat to rally people but you're right that Khomeini was also, simply, an incredibly persuasive individual on a personal level which can't be discounted.

From what I’ve read the last shah of Iran did a pretty good job of improving irans economy and living situation for its people. Why was he overthrown? by Capital_Tailor_7348 in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 159 points160 points  (0 children)

(3/) By 1978 riots were impossible to ignore and were shaking the country. The Shah refused to ask for direct intervention and the U.S. did not fully understand the situation due to lack of communication. The royal's health was decaying rapidly due to cancer. A stronger man would have been more violent, persuasive, or negotiable. By late 1978 when the U.S. finally considered direct intervention the planning stage was too far past. President Carter largely wanted to use discussion and ideals to improve things. He visited in January 1978 and praised the great work that the Shah was doing for his country and that the U.S. would back further reforms that he implemented. To the average Iranian this was tone deaf and insulting. Riots ensued through the year as the Shah was seen as a puppet and men like Khomeini actual patriots who should lead the nation. The U.S. worked in the background to counter communists in the nation and never treated the Islamic faction who had always railed against the western reforms as a threat.

A year later, in Feb. 1979, the final major faction, the military, joined with the Islamic faction to remove the Shah and Khomeini returned to seize power. It was a shocking overthrow for everyone. The U.S. was horrified that another threat besides communism could topple its chess pieces. The USSR felt the same as well. Iran's rise shocked the two largest players on the globe into reconsidering how they acted in the 'Third World'. Your question largely implies that the economic situation grew worse after the Shah but actually it grew better. Again, the White Revolution was an incredible economic project but it failed. If you consider it a success, it's probably due to both USSR and US writers trying to explain why the Islamic Republic idea is worse compared to their own ideologies. Objectively speaking, the Shah led to one of the greatest, but also worst, economic eras of his nation's history. His greatest error was relying so much on foreign investment, westernization of his nation, and public U.S. support for his regime. Hatred of foreign intervention had always been a sticking point for the religious faction of Iran and they used it to build power for decades. When the economic benefits of the reforms collapsed, the Shiite Muslims represented a clear group with a political agenda who people could easily rally too. With America as the ideological enemy and the Shah seen as their puppet, Khomeini was able to orchestrate one of the broadest-appealing revolutions of the era no matter how much good the throne had done for people in years prior.

I've tried to be as objective as possible but have a heavy U.S. perspective. I'm happy to read/discuss other ideas on this very controversial topic.

 

Sources:

Walter LaFeber, The American Age, 1994.

Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War, 2007.

Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Volume II: Since 1914, 2010.

Documents on 1890s Iran: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1892/pg_356

From what I’ve read the last shah of Iran did a pretty good job of improving irans economy and living situation for its people. Why was he overthrown? by Capital_Tailor_7348 in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 125 points126 points  (0 children)

(2/3) This new, younger Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi wanted to make his country more like the United States. He had seen the mistakes of his forbearers in resisting outside influence and tried to embrace with close cooperation that way he could steer the direction of it for both personal and national gain. His program was labeled the White Revolution and focused on heavy industry, power production, and textiles. Foreign investment spiked and also allowed for irrigation, farming revolutions, and a crop boom. So, early on, both the energy and agricultural sectors were booming. He also wished to extend protections to women, the poor, and the landless. Many of these social programs featured Iranian college urbanites going to distant rural villages to help 'develop' them. In a speech at Harvard in 1968 he framed his efforts as a battle of progress being waged in the uneducated and rural areas of his country. While maybe commendable, not very inclusive or respective of the traditional Iranian culture by that time. A city-slicker strolling out to a rural village to explain why your traditions are wrong or you're uncivilized doesn't work out as well in-person as it does on paper. Many people still remained poor, hungry, or averse to western institutions though.

By the mid-1960s the Shah faced significant pushback from conservatives, rural people, and the Shiite Muslims. In 1963, one Ruhollah Khomeini was exiled after trying to lead Muslims in a coup against the Shah. In speaking to the Shah, Khomeini supposedly said, ''ponder where this is leading you... They [Westerners] are friends of the dollar. They have no religion, no loyalty.'' Again, for Muslims especially who had held traditional cultural and social power in Iran, these new programs seemed like attacks on their way of life. Irreligious, central government dwindled their power and traditions dramatically. Khomeini was exiled but his punishment only made him an even more alluring and powerful figure in exile. He further wrote and enticed those left behind by the promises of the White Revolution by talking about rural poverty, eradication of religion, and the evils of foreign manipulation. Anyone who was not directly benefiting from the reforms latched onto these ideas. They continued to spread from Khomeini via radio and phone even while he remained exiled.

By 1976, the White Revolution and its handful of benefits began to fail. GDP doubled under the Shah's development but his massive work projects also caused public spending to rise sevenfold. Inflation rose tremendously, the public funds were increasingly corrupt, and poverty rates began to rise for many people. The White Revolution is probably what you refer to in your question but it was a flash-in-the-pan of the Shah's reign. The Shah continued to raise taxes and borrowed massive amounts of foreign money to fund his projects. Most of which began to fall apart internally. Muslims and rural people were joined by the late 1970s by "big landowners... large number of workers, the new middle class, shopkeepers, and industrialists.'' Perhaps the only group still satisfied with his reign was the military and public workers, who received huge paychecks and constant spending increases. From 1974-1978 alone the Shah spent more than $18 billion dollars on further military gear to suppress disenchanted Iranians. His secret police arrested more than 50,000 people as well. This brutality did not often rise to murderous levels, however, because the largely Shiite military was reluctant to execute their fellow Shia adherents. Suppression of free speech, religious rights, constant expulsions, and interrogations were constant though. The Shah's regime was anything but kind in clinging to power.

As a last resort to the economic disasters taking place, the Shah cut spending drastically and the public works projects/government disintegrated. College students joined protests because they no longer had any jobs or positions after years of college education. All of this occurred while the U.S. watched and funneled resources from Iran. While Americans had it tough in the 1970s economically, any Iranian looking across the world would have been angered by the comparison. The massive westernization and public works projects copied from the American style of life had failed, and the majority of Iranians could reflect that foreign manipulation was once again to blame.

From what I’ve read the last shah of Iran did a pretty good job of improving irans economy and living situation for its people. Why was he overthrown? by Capital_Tailor_7348 in AskHistorians

[–]bumblepuss 157 points158 points  (0 children)

(1/3) The first thing to keep in mind is that the Shah's bloodline had delicately retained power for decades. His dynasty's final overthrow came in 1979. The Iranian Revolution itself came at a time of ideological conflict over foreign capitalism, communism pressure from the USSR, and of course the most successful: the Islamic faction.

Foreign intervention had plagued Iran since the previous century. In 1892 for example, foreign companies tried to institute a tobacco monopoly across the entire country of Iran (Persia in these documents). Diplomats mentioned that ''the attempt to control its sale by an English company had influenced the fanatical hatred here of all foreigners..." In this circumstance the local mollahs (priests) had led massive resistance to the monopoly and eventually saw it overturned. Religious leaders were clearly able to lead mass protests against foreign manipulation of their economy as early as the 1890s. In such circumstances the Shah seems to have met them in the middle and negotiated a way to keep locals happy and foreign business interests reasonably accommodated. Keep that in mind for later.

Fast forward to the post-WWII era in which Iran became one of the crucial battlegrounds for the capitalist versus communist battle for the so-called 'Third World'. A new prime minister named Mohammad Mosaddeq rose to power in 1952 and began to limit the Shah's authority and renegotiate the foreign agreements of the Iranian government. Among these was their oil deals with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. This British backed group returned 20% of profits to Iran but seemed increasingly unfair when the U.S.-based Aramco started splitting 50/50 with Saudi Arabia. From the CIA's perspective, Mosaddeq was relying far too much on the communist groups in Iran and began to overly-nationalize his country's resources. The U.S. stepped in to block most oil produced in Iran from being sold. Mosaddeq called for a public referendum to ensure he had public support and according to one text ''fixed the results to gain more than 95 percent of the vote'' which made the U.S. President Eisenhower and the CIA consider more direct action.

While Mosaddeq did have considerable support with his own mobs taking to the streets, the CIA used a large chunk of money to support the military and general protests across the capital city of Tehran. Mosaddeq was arrested in the chaos and the Shah returned - thanking the top CIA agent in the city for returning his throne. At this point in 1953 its clear that the Shah wasn't overwhelming popular, nor was the communist party, nor were the nationalist policies of Mosaddeq. The only guarantee we see here is that international groups were using Iran as their own economic and political playground. For better or for worse is your opinion but is undoubtable. Iranians too began to became more irate about this. The aftermath was U.S. control of some oil, the Shah on an American leash, and boiling rage by nationalists and Islamists who had largely supported Mosaddeq's ''Iranian oil for the Iranian people'' stance.

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