Learn Persian with Chai in Conversation Growing Up Irony Interview with John Gazzvignon.

Hello and welcome to this Growing Up Irony interview with John Rasmidion.

My name is Leila Shams, and I am host of the Learn Persian with Chying Conversation podcast.

In the Growing Up Erronee series, we interview members of the Diaspora, and it was a great honor to interview John,

author of the new fantastic book, America and Iran, A History, 1720 to the present,

a comprehensive new survey of the bilateral relationship based on years of archival research

in both Iran and the United States, which he has been working on since

2008. For the past many decades, the relationship between the United States and Iran has

been very hostile and toxic, defined by coups, hostage crises, inflammatory slogans, devastating

sanctions, and more. It hasn't always been this way, and the two countries

actually had quite a lot of mutual admiration for each other in the past. The book chronicles

that all the way back to 1720. Iran is often on the front page of the news in the U.S. these days,

but you'll probably be surprised to find out that it was often on the front page of the

U.S. news in the 18th century as well. John was born in Iran, but moved to London at the age of one,

and to Los Angeles in high school. So I wanted to talk to him about his relationship to Iran

and the language growing up, and what led him to write this book, much of which relied on

primary source material in

the Persian language located in Iran. So let's get right into the interview.

John Razvinian, thank you so much for talking with me today.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

So I've been immersed in your book for quite a while now and I've really enjoyed reading it.

So right now we're actually recording this

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