This presentation explores the early years of the fledgling United States government. The speaker will discuss the concerns and shortcomings of the founding fathers and the vision they harbored for the nascent republic, the world’s oldest national constitutional government. He will identify the competing narratives that shaped the American Revolution and the way they interacted to inform the early party system in the United States. He will conclude by scanning the interplay of party politics and elections throughout American history.
Massud Alemi is a bilingual writer/translator currently living in Maryland. He was born in Tehran, Iran, and emigrated to the United States for higher education in 1977. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 provided the excuse he needed to study history. He’s been preoccupied with the roots of the Islamic revolution in the country of his birth, a preoccupation that led him to writing. He graduated from George Mason University in Virginia, and went on to get an MBA. His debut novel, Interruptions, was published in 2008. He most recently translated into Persian The Federalist Papers, “the most instructive treatise we possess on federal government,” according to Alexis de Tocqueville. He included in this volume a translation of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.
Both of his books will be available for signing.
He has written in both English and Persian, and is the author and translator of the following books:
· Interruptions (a Novel)
IBEX Publishers: Hardcover, 2008; Interruptions examines the various paths we choose when our day-to-day life is interrupted.
· The Federalist Papers (Persian translation)
Paperback, 2016: translation into Persian along with the U.S. Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union and the U.S. Constitution, all presented in one volume.
University of California Berkeley
http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/large_map.html
Lecture in Persian