Reza Shah Pahlavi
Former Shah of IranWikipedia
92
MENTIONS
17
EPISODES
16
PODCASTS
Search complete. 92 mentions across 17 episodes found for "Reza Shah Pahlavi".
Sep 14, 2026
LeonardPANELIST
I don't know.
RebeccaPANELIST
Is that related to, um, Shah Reza?
LeonardPANELIST
Yeah.
LeonardPANELIST
And then, and, you know-
RebeccaPANELIST
The last Shah was named Shah Reza.
LeonardPANELIST
Yeah.
Rebecca SchatzHOST
Oh, true.
Shlomo YisraeliHOST
Like, You know, uniforms were like a miniskirt for girls.
Shlomo YisraeliHOST
And, you know, and this also happened to be the same time with Reza Shah, father of Shah, you know, banning, banning the head covering and so on for women.
Shlomo YisraeliHOST
The time was, if you understand what happened, you understand better that this is, the situation they were dealing with.
Shlomo YisraeliHOST
And in one short generation, they swept the entire thing because people no longer looked up to their parents because education was banned under Shah until they made it, it was a royal thing.
Meir LitvakGUEST
Interestingly enough, they remained crypto-Jews for 100 years, living double life.
Meir LitvakGUEST
reverting back to Judaism in the 1930s under the secular rule of Reza Shah.
Meir LitvakGUEST
So you could say there's a stronger, much less tolerant and benevolent etiode in Shiism.
Meir LitvakGUEST
Indeed, in the modern 20th century, Because of, I would say again, the tough encounter of Iran with Western culture, Western powers, etc., the Islamic trend in Iran adopted a strong anti-Jewish position.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
They've had various dynasties since then.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And in the early part of the 20th century, I tell the story about how a self-made king, Reza Shah, established himself in 1925.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And he's one of the key nation makers in the book you mentioned, Ataturk.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
who founded the Turks, Ben-Gurion, who founded Israel, and Ibn Saud, Abdelaziz, who founded Saudi Arabia.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
Well, another one of these titanic figures is Reza Shah, who founded the Pahlavi dynasty.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And in our own lifetimes... his son, the Shah ruled and he, it was he that was overthrown in 1979 and he was a secular ruler.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
He was, he was a reformer.
Dan SenorHOST
His new book, The Cauldron, tells the story of the entire Middle East, from Morocco to Iran, from 1900 to the wars of 2026.
Dan SenorHOST
In between are the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the creation of modern Turkey and the Arab states, the birth of Israel, the Cold War, Nasser and pan-Arabism, the Shah and the Iranian Revolution, the rise of Islamism, the American era in the region...
Dan SenorHOST
the emergence of Erdogan and Mohammed bin Salman, the long reign of Benjamin Netanyahu, October 7th, the Gaza War, and the wars with Iran.
Dan SenorHOST
And one of its central ideas is that we give outsiders far too much credit for making the region and the people who actually live there far too little agency.
30 MINS LATER
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And so they wonder what to do with it.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And they find a candidate to take over.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And that is Reza Shah.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
Reza Khan, who becomes Reza Shah.
Dan SenorHOST
His new book, The Cauldron, tells the story of the entire Middle East, from Morocco to Iran, from 1900 to the wars of 2026.
Dan SenorHOST
In between are the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the creation of modern Turkey and the Arab states, the birth of Israel, the Cold War, Nasser and Pan-Arabism, the Shah and the Iranian Revolution, the rise of Islamism, the American era in the region, the emergence of Erdogan and Mohammed bin Salman, the long reign of Benjamin Netanyahu, October 7th, the Gaza War, and the wars with Iran.
Dan SenorHOST
And one of its central ideas is that we give outsiders far too much credit for making the region and the people who actually live there far too little agency.
Dan SenorHOST
The Middle East was not simply acted upon.
30 MINS LATER
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And so they wonder what to do with it.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And they find a candidate to take over.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And that is Reza Shah.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
Reza Khan, who becomes Reza Shah.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And the occupation of the Russians and of the, of British led to a famine in which a million Iranians died, a million Persians died, and the country was literally in disintegration.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And it was rescued by Reza Shah, the father of the Shah, who was one of the kind of great nation builders of tw- 20th century.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
Um, and then in World War II, he made a terrible calculation where he tried to maintain neutrality between Churchill and Stalin on one side, the Allies, and Hitler as the Middle East came into play.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
And the British just, the British took a pretty ruthless view of the Middle East.
Jonathan LiviHOST
I mean, Iran was a more secular country.
GiacomoPANELIST
Reza Shah
Jonathan LiviHOST
So it wasn't as...
Jonathan LiviHOST
So yeah, that, that's why, by the way, in Maimonides' time, the, they describe the time of Maimonides in southern Spain in the, in the 13th century or the, the 12th century, actually, the late, the late 12th century CE.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
he, he was obviously an amaze-- Yes, and he was obviously an amazing character who d- was, was incredibly successful.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
Another nation maker, you know, Reza Shah, you know, created modern Iran, but made a terrible wrong call in, in, in the beginning of World War II when he thought that he could balance between the Nazis and the British.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
Ataturk, well, just an extraordinary character, you know, the greatest Ottoman general of World War I.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
As you both know, the Ottoman Empire perf- performed much better in World War I than anyone expected and was much more resilient, and twice defeated the British army at Kut in Iraq, where there was a, where, you know, an army, a whole army surrendered in, in shame.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
But then, you know, I t- I sort of work hard to sort of try and, um, make it very readable, approachable, accessible, whatever you want to say, by, by using a strong narrative and by using characters.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
So it's full of these giant characters, you know, um, you know, Na- Gamal Abdel Nasser, for example, King Farouk, Faisal of Iraq, and also, you know, the Shah of Iran, his father, Reza Shah.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
Uh, these are all Mossadeq.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
Um, there are-- It's filled with amazing characters.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
But the interesting thing about him is he's a sort of very original character.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
They all say he's a madman.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
The Shah called him the Libyan lunatic.
Simon Sebag MontefioreGUEST
But- Um, he, he sort of specialized in telling the truth to everybody in, in very inconvenient ways.
7 more episodes mention Reza Shah Pahlavi.
Create an account to see the whole feed, search across every transcript, and follow the entities you care about.