Author: Arash Khazeni
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295800755
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
Tribes and Empire on the Margins of Nineteenth-Century Iran traces the history of the Bakhtiyari tribal confederacy of the Zagros Mountains through momentous times that saw the opening of their territory to the outside world. As the Qajar dynasty sought to integrate the peoples on its margins into the state, the British Empire made commercial inroads into the once inaccessible mountains on the frontier between Iran and Iraq. The distance between the state and the tribes was narrowed through imperial projects that included the building of a road through the mountains, the gathering of geographical and ethnographic information, and the exploration for oil, which culminated during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. These modern projects assimilated autonomous pastoral nomadic tribes on the peripheries of Qajar Iran into a wider imperial territory and the world economy. Tribal subjects did not remain passive amidst these changes in environment and society, however, and projects of empire in the hinterlands of Iran were always mediated through encounters, accommodation, and engagement with the tribes. In contrast to the range of literature on the urban classes and political center in Qajar Iran, Arash Khazeni adopts a view from the Bakhtiyari tents on the periphery. Drawing upon Persian chronicles, tribal histories, and archival sources from London, Tehran, and Isfahan, this book opens new ground by approaching nineteenth-century Iran from its edge and placing the tribal periphery at the heart of a tale about empire and assimilation in the modern Middle East.
Tribes and Empire on the Margins of Nineteenth-Century Iran
Author: Arash Khazeni
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295800755
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
Tribes and Empire on the Margins of Nineteenth-Century Iran traces the history of the Bakhtiyari tribal confederacy of the Zagros Mountains through momentous times that saw the opening of their territory to the outside world. As the Qajar dynasty sought to integrate the peoples on its margins into the state, the British Empire made commercial inroads into the once inaccessible mountains on the frontier between Iran and Iraq. The distance between the state and the tribes was narrowed through imperial projects that included the building of a road through the mountains, the gathering of geographical and ethnographic information, and the exploration for oil, which culminated during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. These modern projects assimilated autonomous pastoral nomadic tribes on the peripheries of Qajar Iran into a wider imperial territory and the world economy. Tribal subjects did not remain passive amidst these changes in environment and society, however, and projects of empire in the hinterlands of Iran were always mediated through encounters, accommodation, and engagement with the tribes. In contrast to the range of literature on the urban classes and political center in Qajar Iran, Arash Khazeni adopts a view from the Bakhtiyari tents on the periphery. Drawing upon Persian chronicles, tribal histories, and archival sources from London, Tehran, and Isfahan, this book opens new ground by approaching nineteenth-century Iran from its edge and placing the tribal periphery at the heart of a tale about empire and assimilation in the modern Middle East.
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295800755
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
Tribes and Empire on the Margins of Nineteenth-Century Iran traces the history of the Bakhtiyari tribal confederacy of the Zagros Mountains through momentous times that saw the opening of their territory to the outside world. As the Qajar dynasty sought to integrate the peoples on its margins into the state, the British Empire made commercial inroads into the once inaccessible mountains on the frontier between Iran and Iraq. The distance between the state and the tribes was narrowed through imperial projects that included the building of a road through the mountains, the gathering of geographical and ethnographic information, and the exploration for oil, which culminated during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. These modern projects assimilated autonomous pastoral nomadic tribes on the peripheries of Qajar Iran into a wider imperial territory and the world economy. Tribal subjects did not remain passive amidst these changes in environment and society, however, and projects of empire in the hinterlands of Iran were always mediated through encounters, accommodation, and engagement with the tribes. In contrast to the range of literature on the urban classes and political center in Qajar Iran, Arash Khazeni adopts a view from the Bakhtiyari tents on the periphery. Drawing upon Persian chronicles, tribal histories, and archival sources from London, Tehran, and Isfahan, this book opens new ground by approaching nineteenth-century Iran from its edge and placing the tribal periphery at the heart of a tale about empire and assimilation in the modern Middle East.
The Discovery of Iran
Author: Ali Mirsepassi
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503629805
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
The Discovery of Iran examines the history of Iranian nationalism afresh through the life and work of Taghi Arani, the founder of Iran's first Marxist journal, Donya. In his quest to imagine a future for Iran open to the scientific riches of the modern world and the historical diversity of its own people, Arani combined Marxist materialism and a cosmopolitan ethics of progress. He sought to reconcile Iran to its post-Islamic past, rejected by Persian purists and romanticized by their traditionalist counterparts, while orienting its present toward the modern West in all its complex and conflicting facets. As Ali Mirsepassi shows, Arani's cosmopolitanism complicates the conventional wisdom that racial exclusivism was an insoluble feature of twentieth-century Iranian nationalism. In cultural spaces like Donya, Arani and his contemporaries engaged vibrant debates about national identity, history, and Iran's place in the modern world. In exploring Arani's short but remarkable life and writings, Ali Mirsepassi challenges the image of Interwar Iran as dominated by the Pahlavi state to uncover fertile intellectual spaces in which civic nationalism flourished.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503629805
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
The Discovery of Iran examines the history of Iranian nationalism afresh through the life and work of Taghi Arani, the founder of Iran's first Marxist journal, Donya. In his quest to imagine a future for Iran open to the scientific riches of the modern world and the historical diversity of its own people, Arani combined Marxist materialism and a cosmopolitan ethics of progress. He sought to reconcile Iran to its post-Islamic past, rejected by Persian purists and romanticized by their traditionalist counterparts, while orienting its present toward the modern West in all its complex and conflicting facets. As Ali Mirsepassi shows, Arani's cosmopolitanism complicates the conventional wisdom that racial exclusivism was an insoluble feature of twentieth-century Iranian nationalism. In cultural spaces like Donya, Arani and his contemporaries engaged vibrant debates about national identity, history, and Iran's place in the modern world. In exploring Arani's short but remarkable life and writings, Ali Mirsepassi challenges the image of Interwar Iran as dominated by the Pahlavi state to uncover fertile intellectual spaces in which civic nationalism flourished.
British Imperialism in Qajar Iran
Author: H. Lyman Stebbins
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786730987
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
In 1888, there were just four British consulates in the country; by 1921 there were twenty-three. H. Lyman Stebbins investigates the development and consequences of British imperialism in Iran in a time of international rivalry, revolution and world war. While previous narratives of Anglo-Iranian relations have focused on the highest diplomatic circles in Tehran, London, Calcutta and St. Petersburg, this book argues that British consuls and political agents made the vast southern borderlands of Iran the real centre of British power and influence during this period. Based on British consular archives from Bushihr, Shiraz, Sistan and Muhammarah, this book reveals that Britain, India and Iran were linked together by discourses of colonial knowledge and patterns of political, military and economic control. It also contextualizes the emergence of Iranian nationalism as well as the failure and collapse of the Qajar state during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the First World War.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786730987
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
In 1888, there were just four British consulates in the country; by 1921 there were twenty-three. H. Lyman Stebbins investigates the development and consequences of British imperialism in Iran in a time of international rivalry, revolution and world war. While previous narratives of Anglo-Iranian relations have focused on the highest diplomatic circles in Tehran, London, Calcutta and St. Petersburg, this book argues that British consuls and political agents made the vast southern borderlands of Iran the real centre of British power and influence during this period. Based on British consular archives from Bushihr, Shiraz, Sistan and Muhammarah, this book reveals that Britain, India and Iran were linked together by discourses of colonial knowledge and patterns of political, military and economic control. It also contextualizes the emergence of Iranian nationalism as well as the failure and collapse of the Qajar state during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the First World War.
Making and Remaking Empire in Early Qajar Iran
Author: Assef Ashraf
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009361554
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363
Book Description
Uses political practices and a socially-oriented approach to explain imperial formation under the Qajars in early nineteenth-century Iran.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009361554
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363
Book Description
Uses political practices and a socially-oriented approach to explain imperial formation under the Qajars in early nineteenth-century Iran.
Iran
Author: Abbas Amanat
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300231466
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1028
Book Description
A masterfully researched and compelling history of Iran from 1501 to 2009 This history of modern Iran is not a survey in the conventional sense but an ambitious exploration of the story of a nation. It offers a revealing look at how events, people, and institutions are shaped by currents that sometimes reach back hundreds of years. The book covers the complex history of the diverse societies and economies of Iran against the background of dynastic changes, revolutions, civil wars, foreign occupation, and the rise of the Islamic Republic. Abbas Amanat combines chronological and thematic approaches, exploring events with lasting implications for modern Iran and the world. Drawing on diverse historical scholarship and emphasizing the twentieth century, he addresses debates about Iran’s culture and politics. Political history is the driving narrative force, given impetus by Amanat's decades of research and study. He layers the book with discussions of literature, music, and the arts; ideology and religion; economy and society; and cultural identity and heritage.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300231466
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1028
Book Description
A masterfully researched and compelling history of Iran from 1501 to 2009 This history of modern Iran is not a survey in the conventional sense but an ambitious exploration of the story of a nation. It offers a revealing look at how events, people, and institutions are shaped by currents that sometimes reach back hundreds of years. The book covers the complex history of the diverse societies and economies of Iran against the background of dynastic changes, revolutions, civil wars, foreign occupation, and the rise of the Islamic Republic. Abbas Amanat combines chronological and thematic approaches, exploring events with lasting implications for modern Iran and the world. Drawing on diverse historical scholarship and emphasizing the twentieth century, he addresses debates about Iran’s culture and politics. Political history is the driving narrative force, given impetus by Amanat's decades of research and study. He layers the book with discussions of literature, music, and the arts; ideology and religion; economy and society; and cultural identity and heritage.
Iran and Russian Imperialism
Author: Moritz Deutschmann
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317385306
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
Rather than a centralized state, Iran in the nineteenth century was a delicate balance between tribal groups, urban merchant communities, religious elites, and an autocratic monarchy. While Russia gained an increasingly dominant political role in Iran over the course of this century, Russian influence was often challenged by banditry on the roads, riots in the cities, and the seeming arbitrariness of the Shah. Iran and Russian Imperialism develops a comprehensive picture of Russia’s historical entanglements with one of its most important neighbours in Asia. It recounts how the Russian Empire strived to gain political influence at the Persian court, promote Russian trade, and secure the enormous southern borders of the empire. Using hitherto often neglected documents from archives in Russia and Georgia and reading them against the grain, this book reveals the complex reactions of different groups in Iranian society to Russian imperialism. As it turns out, the Iranians were, in the words of the Russian orientalist Konstantin Smirnov, "ideal anarchists," whose resistance to imperial domination, as well as to centralized state institutions more generally, impacted developments in the region in the century to come. Iran’s troubled relationship with the wider world continues to be a topic of considerable interest to historians, yet little focus has been given to Russia’s historical connections to Iran. This book thus represents a valuable contribution to Iranian and Russian History, as well as International Relations.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317385306
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
Rather than a centralized state, Iran in the nineteenth century was a delicate balance between tribal groups, urban merchant communities, religious elites, and an autocratic monarchy. While Russia gained an increasingly dominant political role in Iran over the course of this century, Russian influence was often challenged by banditry on the roads, riots in the cities, and the seeming arbitrariness of the Shah. Iran and Russian Imperialism develops a comprehensive picture of Russia’s historical entanglements with one of its most important neighbours in Asia. It recounts how the Russian Empire strived to gain political influence at the Persian court, promote Russian trade, and secure the enormous southern borders of the empire. Using hitherto often neglected documents from archives in Russia and Georgia and reading them against the grain, this book reveals the complex reactions of different groups in Iranian society to Russian imperialism. As it turns out, the Iranians were, in the words of the Russian orientalist Konstantin Smirnov, "ideal anarchists," whose resistance to imperial domination, as well as to centralized state institutions more generally, impacted developments in the region in the century to come. Iran’s troubled relationship with the wider world continues to be a topic of considerable interest to historians, yet little focus has been given to Russia’s historical connections to Iran. This book thus represents a valuable contribution to Iranian and Russian History, as well as International Relations.
City of Knowledge in Twentieth Century Iran
Author: Setrag Manoukian
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136627170
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
This book presents a cultural history of modern Iran through the perspective of the city. Addressing the relationship between history, poetry and politics in Iran, the author demonstrates that the question of knowledge is crucial to an understanding of the political and existential dimensions of life in Iran today.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136627170
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
This book presents a cultural history of modern Iran through the perspective of the city. Addressing the relationship between history, poetry and politics in Iran, the author demonstrates that the question of knowledge is crucial to an understanding of the political and existential dimensions of life in Iran today.
Modernity's Classics
Author: Sarah C. Humphreys
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642330711
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
This book presents critical studies of modern reconfigurations of conceptions of the past, of the 'classical', and of national heritage. Its scope is global (China, India, Egypt, Iran, Judaism, the Greco-Roman world) and inter-disciplinary (textual philology, history of art and architecture, philosophy, gardening). Its emphasis is on the complexity of the modernization process and of reactions to it: ideas and technologies travelled from India to Iran and from Japan to China, while reactions show tensions between museumization and the recreation of 'presence'. It challenges readers to rethink the assumptions of the disciplines in which they were trained
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642330711
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
This book presents critical studies of modern reconfigurations of conceptions of the past, of the 'classical', and of national heritage. Its scope is global (China, India, Egypt, Iran, Judaism, the Greco-Roman world) and inter-disciplinary (textual philology, history of art and architecture, philosophy, gardening). Its emphasis is on the complexity of the modernization process and of reactions to it: ideas and technologies travelled from India to Iran and from Japan to China, while reactions show tensions between museumization and the recreation of 'presence'. It challenges readers to rethink the assumptions of the disciplines in which they were trained
Nomadism in Iran
Author: D. T. Potts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199330808
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 640
Book Description
The classic images of Iranian nomads in circulation today and in years past suggest that Western awareness of nomadism is a phenomenon of considerable antiquity. Though nomadism has certainly been a key feature of Iranian history, it has not been in the way most modern archaeologists have envisaged it. Nomadism in Iran recasts our understanding of this "timeless" tradition. Far from constituting a natural adaptation on the Iranian Plateau, nomadism is a comparatively late introduction, which can only be understood within the context of certain political circumstances. Since the early Holocene, most, if not all, agricultural communities in Iran had kept herds of sheep and goat, but the communities themselves were sedentary: only a few of their members were required to move with the herds seasonally. Though the arrival of Iranian speaking groups, attested in written sources beginning in the time of Herodutus, began to change the demography of the plateau, it wasn't until later in the eleventh century that an influx of Turkic speaking Oghuz nomadic groups-"true" nomads of the steppe-began the modification of the demography of the Iranian Plateau that accelerated with the Mongol conquest. The massive, unprecedented violence of this invasion effected the widespread distribution of largely Turkic-speaking nomadic groups across Iran. Thus, what has been interpreted in the past as an enduring pattern of nomadic land use is, by archaeological standards, very recent. Iran's demographic profile since the eleventh century AD, and more particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth century, has been used by some scholars as a proxy for ancient social organization. Nomadism in Iran argues that this modernist perspective distorts the historical reality of the land. Assembling a wealth of material in several languages and disciplines, Nomadism in Iran will be invaluable to archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians of the Middle East and Central Asia.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199330808
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 640
Book Description
The classic images of Iranian nomads in circulation today and in years past suggest that Western awareness of nomadism is a phenomenon of considerable antiquity. Though nomadism has certainly been a key feature of Iranian history, it has not been in the way most modern archaeologists have envisaged it. Nomadism in Iran recasts our understanding of this "timeless" tradition. Far from constituting a natural adaptation on the Iranian Plateau, nomadism is a comparatively late introduction, which can only be understood within the context of certain political circumstances. Since the early Holocene, most, if not all, agricultural communities in Iran had kept herds of sheep and goat, but the communities themselves were sedentary: only a few of their members were required to move with the herds seasonally. Though the arrival of Iranian speaking groups, attested in written sources beginning in the time of Herodutus, began to change the demography of the plateau, it wasn't until later in the eleventh century that an influx of Turkic speaking Oghuz nomadic groups-"true" nomads of the steppe-began the modification of the demography of the Iranian Plateau that accelerated with the Mongol conquest. The massive, unprecedented violence of this invasion effected the widespread distribution of largely Turkic-speaking nomadic groups across Iran. Thus, what has been interpreted in the past as an enduring pattern of nomadic land use is, by archaeological standards, very recent. Iran's demographic profile since the eleventh century AD, and more particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth century, has been used by some scholars as a proxy for ancient social organization. Nomadism in Iran argues that this modernist perspective distorts the historical reality of the land. Assembling a wealth of material in several languages and disciplines, Nomadism in Iran will be invaluable to archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians of the Middle East and Central Asia.
Iran between Islamic Nationalism and Secularism
Author: Vanessa Martin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857722840
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
With the ratification of a new constitution in December 1906, Iran embarked on a great movement of systemic and institutional change which, along with the introduction of new ideas, was to be one of the most abiding legacies of the first Iranian revolution - known as the Constitutional Revolution. This uprising was significant not only for introducing secular understandings of government, but also Islamic visions of what could constitute a national assembly. The events of the Constitutional Revolution in Tehran have been much discussed, but the provinces, despite their crucial role in the revolution, have received less attention. Here, Vanessa Martin seeks to redress this imbalance. She does so by firstly analysing the role of the Islamic debate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and its relationship with secular ideas, and secondly by examining the ramifications of this debate in the main cities of Tabriz, Shiraz, Isfahan and Bushehr. When Muzaffar al-Din Shah came to power in 1896, on the assassination of his father Nasr al-Din Shah, Iran was in the midst of social and political upheaval, which culminated in the creation for the first time in Iran's history of a constitution and a new majlis (consultative assembly). In this book, Martin looks in particular at the idea of modern Islamic government as it was conceptualized at the time; an idea which had been emerging for some time before the revolution, having its origins in the vision of the reformist pan-Islamist, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. She therefore traces the evolution of the debate around whether Iran was to be a secular or an Islamic society, or a combination of the two, together with the implications of this discourse in terms of popular perception and public opinion. By looking at the revolution outside of Tehran, she highlights the intra-elite rivalries, and the Islamic response to the Constitutional Revolution, from the moderate views of Thiqat al-Islam to the emergence of Islamic organizations and militancy. It is through this examination of Iran's major provincial cities that Martin concludes that in each region, the Constitutional Revolution took on a character of its own. From an exploration of the elites of Shiraz, including the effective mayor, Qavam al-Mulk, to the power centre of the then governor of Isfahan, Prince Zill al-Sultan, and from the revolutionary fervor of Tabriz to the commercial centre of Bushehr, Martin sheds light on the historical, political, religious and geographical importance of these cities. By examining the interaction between Islam and secularism during this tumultuous time, Iran between Islamic Nationalism and Secularism offers a vital new approach to the understanding of a key moment in Iran's history.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857722840
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
With the ratification of a new constitution in December 1906, Iran embarked on a great movement of systemic and institutional change which, along with the introduction of new ideas, was to be one of the most abiding legacies of the first Iranian revolution - known as the Constitutional Revolution. This uprising was significant not only for introducing secular understandings of government, but also Islamic visions of what could constitute a national assembly. The events of the Constitutional Revolution in Tehran have been much discussed, but the provinces, despite their crucial role in the revolution, have received less attention. Here, Vanessa Martin seeks to redress this imbalance. She does so by firstly analysing the role of the Islamic debate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and its relationship with secular ideas, and secondly by examining the ramifications of this debate in the main cities of Tabriz, Shiraz, Isfahan and Bushehr. When Muzaffar al-Din Shah came to power in 1896, on the assassination of his father Nasr al-Din Shah, Iran was in the midst of social and political upheaval, which culminated in the creation for the first time in Iran's history of a constitution and a new majlis (consultative assembly). In this book, Martin looks in particular at the idea of modern Islamic government as it was conceptualized at the time; an idea which had been emerging for some time before the revolution, having its origins in the vision of the reformist pan-Islamist, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. She therefore traces the evolution of the debate around whether Iran was to be a secular or an Islamic society, or a combination of the two, together with the implications of this discourse in terms of popular perception and public opinion. By looking at the revolution outside of Tehran, she highlights the intra-elite rivalries, and the Islamic response to the Constitutional Revolution, from the moderate views of Thiqat al-Islam to the emergence of Islamic organizations and militancy. It is through this examination of Iran's major provincial cities that Martin concludes that in each region, the Constitutional Revolution took on a character of its own. From an exploration of the elites of Shiraz, including the effective mayor, Qavam al-Mulk, to the power centre of the then governor of Isfahan, Prince Zill al-Sultan, and from the revolutionary fervor of Tabriz to the commercial centre of Bushehr, Martin sheds light on the historical, political, religious and geographical importance of these cities. By examining the interaction between Islam and secularism during this tumultuous time, Iran between Islamic Nationalism and Secularism offers a vital new approach to the understanding of a key moment in Iran's history.