The Midas Touch

The legendary King Midas was the first Near Eastern ruler to cherish the belief that untold mineral wealth would enable him to realize all his dreams and ambitions. But just because all he touched turned into gold, he soon discovered he could no longer eat. The moral of this legend may be coming home to various regimes in oil-rich countries, which are encountering problems of agricultural decline, overrapid rural-urban migration, inflation, increased income distribution gaps, and so forth. Nowhere have the expected achievements to result from oil income been more touted than in Iran, where the “White Revolution” (later the “Shah-People Revolution”) and the “Great Civilization” proclaimed from the throne since the early 1960s were not only to provide social and economic well-being for all, but also to put Iran among the world's top industrial powers before the end of the century (whether it was seriously going to be among the five top world powers varied from statement to statement, but this was said at one time)

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art history · Civilization · Development economics · Economic history · Economics · Gold rush · Legend · Political science · Politics · Ruler · Throne · White (mutation · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Market Dynamics and Volatility · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

• Popular Entertainment, Media and Social Change in Twentieth-Century Iran

  Open Access•Peter Chelkowski•The Cambridge history of Iran.•1991

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• Iranian Relations With Great Britain and British India, 1798–1921

  Open Access•R W Greaves, Rose Greaves•The Cambridge history of Iran.•1991

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• Iranian Foreign Policy, 1921–1979

  Open Access•Amin Saikal•The Cambridge history of Iran.•1991

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• Iranian Relations With Russia and the Soviet Union, to 1921

  Open Access•Firuz Kazemzadeh•The Cambridge history of Iran.•1991

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• The Pahlavī Autocracy

  Open Access•Gavin R G Hambly•The Cambridge history of Iran.•1991

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• Religious Forces in Eighteenth- And Nineteenth-Century Iran

  Open Access•Hamid Algar•The Cambridge history of Iran.•1991

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• Iran Under the Later Qājārs, 1848–1922

  Open Access•Nikki R Keddie, Nikki Keddie et al.•The Cambridge history of Iran.•1991

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• The Cambridge History of Iran

  Open Access•C P Melville, Stanley I Grossman et al.•The Cambridge history of Iran.•1991

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• Printing, the Press and Literature in Modern Iran

  Open Access•Peter Avery•The Cambridge history of Iran.•1991

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• Modified J-Curve Theory, Iran’s Socio-Economic Bottlenecks and the 1979 Fall of the Pahlavi Monarchy

  Gholam Reza Vatandoust, Maryam Sheipari•Middle East Critique•2023

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• Imperial Pretensions and Agricultural Dependence

  Thierry Brun, Rene Dumont•MERIP Reports•1978

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• The Seven Sisters

  Open Access•Lawrence J White•Political Science Quarterly•1976

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• The Economic History of Iran, 1800–1914, and Its Political Impact an Overview

  Open Access•Nikki R Keddie•Iranian Studies•1972

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• Economic Development in Iran 1900–1970

  Keith Mclachlan, K S Mclachlan•International Affairs•1973

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• Iran, dictatorship and development

  Fred Halliday•Iran, dictatorship and development•1979

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• Iran, Dictatorship and Development

  Open Access•Maria Emilia Paz S, Halliday Fred et al.•Revista Mexicana de Sociología•1979

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• Oil versus agriculture a case of dual resource depletion in Iran

  M A Katouzian•The Journal of Peasant Studies•1978

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