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IRAN Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity, edited by Kamran Scott Aghaie and Afshin Marashi. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014. 357 pages. $34.95.
This diverse collection of papers by mostly younger, mainly Iranian-American scholars situates Iranian nationalism, its formation, and its evolution in the context of other manifestations; European as well as Middle Eastern ones, of this most successful of isms. It serves as a "catch-up" discussion with regard to theoretical debates about nationalism and sets an agenda for future scholarship on the topic.
All the papers brought together here have merit; yet to this reviewer, four stand out as important theoretical contributions to an evolving discourse. The first, by Afshin Marashi, offers a clear outline of the various interpretations of nationalism and how they do or do not apply to the Iranian case. Pointing out the limited relevance of the Eastern/ Central European paradigm that underpins so much of the general discourse on nationalism, Marashi argues that, in the absence of industrialization and its dislocations, the formation of a collective identity in Iran was not just a matter of "marginal men" speaking for disgruntled town-dwellers and peasants. Instead, it was driven by modernizing, reform-minded political elites who, blaming global/imperial penetration for Iran's woes, managed to mobilize popular support for their vision of the nation. Marashi makes the equally important observation that the modern Iranian public sphere did not crystalize after a Reformation and Enlightenment-type transformation but left room for a variety of modes, including the religious one, especially as the latter was swell suited to articulate popular, anti-foreign grievances. Unlike India, where the presence of a colonial state temporarily allowed nationalist elites to speak for the subaltern masses, the lack of such a state in Iran complicated matters for nationalists, who thus ended up targeting the Pahlavi state as a surrogate colonial state.
Kamran Aghaie and Farzin Vejdani's essays build on Marashi 's observations by making a case for the inclusion of "religious nationalism," which tends to be overlooked if not dismissed by the mostly secular advocates of the modern Iranian...