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The Story of the Daughters of Quchan: Gender and National Memory in Iranian History, by Afsaneh Najmabadi. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1998. xiv + 183 pages. Notes to p. 213. Gloss. to p. 216. Bibl. to p. 225. Index to p. 241. $49.95 cloth; $24.95 paper.
Reviewed by Mary Elaine Hegland
In this remarkable book, sociologist Afsaneh Najmabadi applies her outstanding analytical perspectives on gender and modernization in Iran to the time of Iran's Constitutional Revolution in 1906. Through extensive research on period publications, she follows the stories about the 1905 sale and capture of Khurasan peasant females, most of whom Turkoman tribesmen then took across the Russian border to the Central Asian slave markets.
In spite of the devastating locust attack in 1905, Khurasan's governor general, Asif alDawlah, granted no tax relief to an already destitute peasant population. When the peasants staged a sit-in and requested lowered taxes, Asif al-Dawlah used their protest as an excuse to remove the local Quchan governor and install his own son. Even an appeal to Muzaffar al-Din Shah went unheeded. Peasants, especially those in the Quchan area hardest hit by locusts, felt that selling their daughters was the only way...