Book reviews

Reappraisal of a Road Project in Iran. By Herman G. Van Der Tak and Jan de Weille. (world Bank Staff Occasional Papers, No. 7). Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969. 127 pp. $3.00.

The Economic History of the Middle East, 1800–1914: A Book of Readings. Edited by Charles Issawi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. xv + 543 pp. $12.50     

Book reviews

History of Iranian Literature. By JAN RYPKA. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1967. 928 pages. $35.00

The Sociology of Development: Iran as an Asian Case Study. By NORMAN JACOBS. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966. 541 pages. $17.50.     

Iranian Women's Participation in the Academic World

This article intends to give a comprehensive picture of women's participation in the scientific field in Iran in the last four decades, among students and members of academia. One major fact is that despite the legal and cultural impediments the proportion of young women in the universities has risen above 50 percent. Another is that this increase has occurred much more at the undergraduate level than at the graduate and post-graduate levels. In the academic world, women are still far outnumbered by men, particularly at the higher levels of the hierarchy. We intend to show how the discrepancies are structured between the undergraduate and the graduate levels on the one hand, and between the lower and higher levels of academic hierarchy on the other, and propose an interpretation of these two major tendencies.     

Book reviews

Shahrgara'i va Shahrnishini dar Iran (bih Inzimam‐i Muqic‐iyyat va Naqsh‐i Tehran). By Mehdi Amani. Tehran: University of Tehran, Institute for Social Studies and Research, 1350/1971. 80 pp. No price indicated.

Migration in Iran: A Quantitative Approach. By Mohammad Hemmasi. Shiraz: Pahlavi University Publications #48, 1974. 144 pp. 150R1s.

The Origins of the ?afawids: ?i^cism, ?ūfism, and the Gulat. By Michel M. Mazzaoui. Wiesbaden: Steiner Verlag, 1972. viii + 85 pp. DM 28.00.

Social and Cultural Selections From Contemporary Persian. With notes, exercises, and an alphabetical word list by Michel M. Mazzaoui and William G. Millward. Delmar New York: Caravan Books, 1973. xi + 128 pp. $7.50.     

The Energy Factor in Iran–Turkmenistan Relations

The collapse of the Soviet Union brought about major upheavals in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Among the newly independent states, those that were endowed with energy resources set out on the path of economic growth. The energy resources in Central Asia also attracted outside powers to the region. Moreover, the status of these countries as landlocked, and Russia's monopoly over energy pipelines, led these countries to search for new partners in order to reduce their dependency. This added a new dimension to the political, economic and security equations of the region. In this article, Turkmenistan is studied as a former Soviet republic and Iran as a regional actor that has interests in the region's energy dynamics. The role of energy in the relations between Turkmenistan and Iran is examined. The article proposes that the energy factor has produced a favorable atmosphere for closer relations between the two countries. However, Tehran needs to overcome a number of challenges in expansion of its relations with Turkmenistan, the most important of which is the United States' effective opposition to any Iranian initiative in the field of energy in the region.