Zhand Shakibi presents a new interpretation of the political and social dynamics of the last decade of the Shah's rule that challenges the binary view of pro-West Shah and anti-West Ayatollah by drawing attention to the Pahlavi state's reaction to the intellectual and societal backlash against cultural and moral Occidentalism in its last decade. Revising the dominant historiography of the Pahlavi ideological and discursive approach to the West, this book draws attention to the changes in the attitude of the Shah, the Empress and state intellectuals towards the position and imagery of the West in state conceptions of the authenticity of Iranian national culture and identity. Drawing on a wide-range of primary sources, Shakibi presents the multi-faceted relationship of the Pahlavi state to the West and the institutions that were created to manage this such as the Rastakhiz Party. This study argues that the Pahlavi state, having recognized this backlash, attempted to limit the threat to its legitimacy by reformulating intellectual discourses of anti-West Occidentalism and incorporating them into the ideology of the Rastakhiz Party. In so doing it played a critical role in exacerbating societal sensitivities about the spread of Western influences.

The burden of this book is twofold. The first half is charged with identifying and critiquing the many prejudices and misconceptions that inform popular – and even scholarly – perceptions of Islam and Iran, those rooted in neo-conservative hostility no less than those arising out of pro-regime apologetics or (what we will argue are) misleading "post-modern" methodologies. This is a key component of our overall investigation, both because the illusions occluding our view of the Islamic Republic are (we assert) piled so high and deep, and because setting the record straight on many a contentious issue is the most appropriate context for elucidating the positive positions of the revolutionary clerics. These last represent, perhaps more than anything else, the premier critics of Western civilization in our day, and their ideologies may therefore be best comprehended when placed in dialogue with, and in polemic against, the worldviews of that civilization (which in their own turn are often most profoundly understood when offset by their present-day Islamist nemeses). As noted above, it is not all contention: unexpected meeting points and congruities emerge, as well, when the activist Shi'ite clerics are placed in the same virtual room with their occidental counterweights. The second half of the book deploys a large number of rarely tapped primary sources, both ancient and contemporary, in order to tease out the attitudes of the class of Muslim scholars recently and currently at the helm of the Iranian state in a variety of significant fields, including the role of religion in society, the relationship between democracy and theocracy, the modern Western Weltanschauung, the Sunni-Shi'i schism, and much more. Though the author parses, and provides background and context for, the myriad citations from these influential Muslim thinkers, the ultimate objective is to allow them to speak for themselves.

A multi-disciplinary approach, placing the 1979 Iranian revolution within global and transnational contexts, showing how the revolution became possible and consequential.

This book is the first extensive research on the role of poetry during the Iranian Revolution (1979) and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). How can poetry, especially peaceful medieval Sufi poems, be applied to exalt violence, to present death as martyrdom, and to process war traumas? Examining poetry by both Islamic revolutionary and established dissident poets, it demonstrates how poetry spurs people to action, even leading them to sacrifice their lives. The book's originality lies in fresh analyses of how themes such as martyrdom and violence, and mystical themes such as love and wine, are integrated in a vehemently political context, while showing how Shiite ritual such as the pilgrimage to Mecca clash with Saudi Wahhabi appreciations. A distinguishing quality of the book is its examination of how martyrdom was instilled in the minds of Iranians through poetry, employing Sufi themes, motifs and doctrines to justify death. Such inculcation proved effective in mobilising people to the front, ready to sacrifice their lives. As such, the book is a must for readers interested in Iranian culture and history, in Sufi poetry, in martyrdom and war poetry. Those involved with Middle Eastern Studies, Iranian Studies, Literary Studies, Political Philosophy and Religious Studies will benefit from this book. "From his own memories and expert research, the author gives us a ravishing account of 'a poetry stained with blood, violence and death'. His brilliantly layered analysis of modern Persian poetry shows how it integrates political and religious ideology and motivational propaganda with age-old mystical themes for the most traumatic of times for Iran." (Alan Williams, Research Professor of Iranian Studies, University of Manchester) "When Asghar Seyed Gohrab, a highly prolific academician, publishes a new book, you can be certain he has paid attention to an exciting and largely unexplored subject. Martyrdom, Mysticism and Dissent: The Poetry of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) is no exception in the sense that he combines a few different cultural, religious, mystic, and political aspects of Iranian life to present a vivid picture and thorough analysis of the development and effect of what became known as the revolutionary poetry of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This time, he has even enriched his narrative by inserting his voice into his analysis. It is a thoughtful book and a fantastic read." (Professor Kamran Talattof, University of Arizona)

In Mission Manifest, Matthew Shannon argues that American evangelicals were central to American-Iranian relations during the decades leading up to the 1979 revolution. These Presbyterian missionaries and other Americans with ideals worked with US government officials, nongovernmental organizations, and their Iranian counterparts as cultural and political brokers—the living sinews of a binational relationship during the Second World War and early Cold War. As US global hegemony peaked between the 1940s and the 1960s, the religious authority of the Presbyterian Mission merged with the material power of the American state to infuse US foreign relations with the messianic ideals of Christian evangelicalism. In Tehran, the missions of American evangelicals became manifest in the realms of religion, development programs, international education, and cultural associations. Americans who lived in Iran also returned to the United States to inform the growth of the national security state, higher education, and evangelical culture. The literal and figurative missions of American evangelicals in late Pahlavi Iran had consequences for the binational relationship, the global evangelical movement, and individual Americans and Iranians. Mission Manifest offers a history of living, breathing people who shared personal, professional, and political aims in Iran at the height of American global power.

Why were urban women veiled in the early 1900s, unveiled from 1936 to 1979, and reveiled after the 1979 revolution? This question forms the basis of Hamideh Sedghi's original and unprecedented contribution to politics and Middle Eastern studies. Using primary and secondary sources, Sedghi offers new knowledge on women's agency in relation to state power. In this rigorous analysis she places contention over women at the centre of the political struggle between secular and religious forces and demonstrates that control over women's identities, sexuality, and labor has been central to the consolidation of state power. Sedghi links politics and culture with economics to present an integrated analysis of the private and public lives of different classes of women and their modes of resistance to state power.

History Below the Global aims to foster an entangled knowledge of global history, and to place "others" at the centre stage, to better understand the fluid world which we inhabit. Relying on primary sources in seven languages and books written by hundreds of African, Asian, Middle Eastern and South American scholars, Lorenzo Kamel examines the coloniality of power in historical research and sheds light on the largely neglected roles of the "others" and their modernities in history. The book provides three elements combined. Firstly, a thorough analysis of the process of accumulation (“knowledge piece by piece”) which underpins some of the major achievements in human history. Secondly, a view on pre-colonial perspectives and the process through which the latter have been swallowed up by Eurocentric and solipsistic perceptions. Lastly, a study of the roots and outcomes of colonialisms and their echoes in our present. These three elements are addressed by combining multiple methodologies and approaches, in the awareness that the history analysed, as well as the historiographical trajectories that underlie it, are ultimately inter-penetrable, as well as themselves the result of a process of accumulation. History Below the Global challenges the view that, first and foremost, the “West”, for bad and for good, is and was the centre: the proactive actor which did and undid. This volume will be of value to all those interested in global history, the history of colonialism, post-colonial studies, modern and contemporary history.

Negative portrayals of the West in Iran are often centred around the CIA-engineered coup of 1953, which overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, or the hostage-taking crisis in 1979 following the attack on the US embassy in Tehran. Looking past these iconic events, Ehsan Bakhshandeh explores the deeper anti-imperialistic and anti-hegemonic roots of the hostility to Westernism that is evident in the Iranian press. Distinguishing between negative and outright hostile perceptions of the West - which also encompasses Britain, France and Germany - the book traces how the West is represented as the `Occident' in the country's media. From the Qajar period and the Tobacco protests of the late nineteenth century to the ill-fated Anglo-Persian Treaty of 1919, through to the 1953 coup and 1979 hostage crisis, Bakshandeh highlights the various points in history when misinterpretations and conflicts led to a demonisation of the `other' in the Iranian media. The major recent source of contention between the West and Iran has of course been the nuclear issue and the resultant regime of sanctions. By examining how this and other issues have been represented by the Iranian press, Bakshandeh offers a crucial and often-overlooked aspect of the key relationship between Iran and the West.

Douglas Little explores the stormy American relationship with the Middle East from World War II through the war in Iraq, focusing particularly on the complex and often inconsistent attitudes and interests that helped put the United States on a collision course with radical Islam early in the new millennium. After documenting the persistence of "orientalist" stereotypes in American popular culture, Little examines oil, Israel, and other aspects of U.S. policy. He concludes that a peculiar blend of arrogance and ignorance has led American officials to overestimate their ability to shape events in the Middle East from 1945 through the present day, and that it has been a driving force behind the Iraq war. For this updated third edition, Little covers events through 2007, including a new chapter on the Bush Doctrine, demonstrating that in many important ways, George W. Bush's Middle Eastern policies mark a sharp break with the past.

While recent books have explored Arab and Turkish nationalism, the nuances of Iran have received scant book-length study—until now. Capturing the significant changes in approach that have shaped this specialization, Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity shares innovative research and charts new areas of analysis from an array of scholars in the field. Delving into a wide range of theoretical and conceptual perspectives, the essays—all previously unpublished—encompass social history, literary theory, postcolonial studies, and comparative analysis to address such topics as: Ethnicity in the Islamic Republic of Iran Political Islam and religious nationalism The evolution of U.S.-Iranian relations before and after the Cold War Comparing Islamic and secular nationalism(s) in Egypt and Iran The German counterrevolution and its influence on Iranian political alliances The effects of Israel's image as a Euro-American space Sufism Geocultural concepts in Azar's Atashkadeh Interdisciplinary in essence, the essays also draw from sociology, gender studies, and art and architecture. Posing compelling questions while challenging the conventional historiographical traditions, the authors (many of whom represent a new generation of Iranian studies scholars) give voice to a research approach that embraces the modern era's complexity while emphasizing Iranian nationalism's contested, multifaceted, and continuously transformative possibilities.