The prime minister leads the government and is appointed by the monarch. Normally, he or she is also leader of the party that wins a general election. Ultimately, the prime minister is responsible for all government policy and decisions. It’s also their job to choose members of the government, known as ministers. The most senior figures are called cabinet ministers. They lead government departments – such as the Treasury and Home Office. The prime minister can, at any time, hire and fire ministers. They can also abolish government departments or create new ones. Alongside the chancellor, the prime minister is in charge of tax-and-spending policy.
The collected essays of Mohammad Ali Foroughi not only present a portrait of the multifaceted and complex character of one of the most influential cultural, academic, and political figures of modern Iran, but also depict the cultural issues and political and social conditions of the country during the turbulent years of Foroughi’s cultural and political life—from the first Constitutional Assembly to the early years of the reign of the second Pahlavi. Mohammad Ali Foroughi was among the most brilliant figures of a generation of Iranian scholars, historians, men of letters, and researchers who emerged from the Constitutional Revolution. During the tumultuous years of that revolution, World War I, and throughout the two-decade reign of the first Pahlavi monarch, they published their works and were so rich and creative in their fields that, apart from perhaps one or two exceptions, no one in later generations managed to take their place.
