Product Description

When Naser al-Din Shah, who ruled Iran from 1848 to 1896, claimed the title Shadow of God on Earth, his authority rested on premodern conceptions of sacred kingship. By 1941, when Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi came to power, his claim to authority as the Shah of Iran was infused with the language of modern nationalism. In short, between roughly 1870 and 1940, Iran's traditional monarchy was forged into a modern nation-state.

In Nationalizing Iran, Afshin Marashi explores the changes that made possible this transformation of Iran into a social abstraction in which notions of state, society, and culture converged. He follows Naser al-Din Shah on a tour of Europe in 1873 that led to his importing a new public image of monarchy-an image based on the European late imperial model-relying heavily on the use of public ceremonies, rituals, and festivals to promote loyalty to the monarch. Meanwhile, Iranian intellectuals were reimagining ethnic history to reconcile "authentic" Iranian culture with the demands of modernity. From the reform of public education to the symbolism surrounding grand public ceremonies in honor of long-dead poets, Marashi shows how the state invented and promoted key features of the common culture binding state and society. The ideological thrust of that century would become the source of dramatic contestation in the late twentieth century.

Marashi's study of the formative era of Iranian nationalism will be valuable to scholars and students of history, political science, and anthropology, as well as journalists, photographers, and other close observers of contemporary Iran.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3786606 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 186 pages

Review
"Marashi's argument and theoretical approach are original and convincing and his conclusions are sound. This book promises to be a classic on the early formation of Iranian nationalism." Kamran Aghaie, author of Martyrs of Karbala: Shi'i Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran "Nationalizing Iran is a very interesting book for a wide readership. Especially original and insightful is its emphasis on continuities underlying what are commonly viewed as ruptures within modern Iranian history, such as the Constitutional Revolution, Reza Shah, Mossadeqh, and the Islamic Revolution of 1979" Sibel Bozdogan, author of Modernism and Nation-Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republic

From the Publisher
"Marashi's argument and theoretical approach are original and convincing and his conclusions are sound. This book promises to be a classic on the early formation of Iranian nationalism." - Kamran Aghaie, author of Martyrs of Karbala: Shi'i Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran

"Nationalizing Iran is a very interesting book for a wide readership. Especially original and insightful is its emphasis on continuities underlying what are commonly viewed as ruptures within modern Iranian history, such as the Constitutional Revolution, Reza Shah, Mossadeqh, and the Islamic Revolution of 1979." - Sibel Bozdogan, author of Modernism and Nation-Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republic

About the Author
Afshin Marashi is assistant professor of history at California State University at Sacramento.