"What is true Iran like? Journalist and historian Dilip Hiro, who has been filing reports on the country since the 1979 revolution, navigates the Iranian labyrinth, illuminating its rich history while providing gripping, eye-witness accounts of the contemporary events and institutions." "Hiro finds Iran to be a land of contradictions. On the one hand, chador-clad women are the majority at universities, Iranian films win prizes at international festivals, and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi is a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; and on the other, a rising number of journalists, intellectuals, women, and youth are chafing at the sociopolitical restrictions imposed on them by the Islamic regime."--Jacket.