Professor Ali Ansari

Professor of Iranian History at the University of St Andrews, Ali specialises on the politics of nationalism, historiography, mythologies, and the uses and abuses of history. He has a particular interest in intellectual history, Iran's relations with the West and Great Britain in particular. He presented a three part documentary on the history of Iran for R4 in 2012 and has been a regular contributor to the national and international media. He is a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), was elected President of the British Institute of Persian Studies in 2013, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2016. In 2017 he was appointed to the Advisory Council of the Liechtenstein Institute for Self Determination at Princeton University. He is currently looking at the influence of Edmund Burke on Iranian political thought, and is preparing a manuscript, tentatively titled, 'A Letter to Britain'.