Iran Is More Than Persia

Iran is More than Persia: Ethnic Politics in Iran analyses Iranian politics from a unique perspective, one that focuses on the relations between the Persian-dominated Iranian state and the country’s ethnic minorities. The book explores the stability of the ruling regime in light of the challenges that multiethnicity brings. Persians comprise less than half of the population of Iran and more than 40 percent of Iranians lack fluency in the Persian language. An overwhelming majority of non-Persian groups inhabit most of Iran’s border regions; as such the book explores Iran’s foreign policy toward neighboring states that share co-ethnic populations. Iran’s ethnic minorities inhabit the state’s poorest provinces and the country’s growing environmental and water supply challenges hit the ethnic minority provinces harder than the Persian center, adding an ominous ethnic character to what are often presented as purely environmental or economic challenges. The book further examines the potential impact of ethnic based unrest in Khuzestan on Iran’s oil production, Iran’s main oil producing region. Drawing on a rich assortment of primary data and interviews, this book offers unparalled insights into ethnic politics in Iran. It will be of interest to upper-level undergraduates and postgraduates, researchers and professionals interested in the Middle East, international relations, and ethnic studies.

In theory, the Islamic Republic should have brought some fraternity to Iran's peoples, especially to the minorities who had engaged in insurgencies against the heavy-handedness of the Pahlavi shahs (1925-1979). That has not happened. The Persianization and centralization of the Iranian state have continued under the clerics. In practice, Islamization has been the obverse side of Persianization. Persianizing Islamists are an unintended tribute to the Pahlavis' success in creating a national identity from a recovered, reanimated past. To the ethnic minorities who are more agnostic, mystical, or anti-clerical (a large number among the Shia), the Islamic Republic's Persianization may even seem more onerous and insulting than that of the Pahlavi shahs. This monograph attempts to fill a serious void in English-language scholarship about Iran's ethnic diversity.

Iran is More than Persia: Ethnic Politics in Iran analyses Iranian politics from a unique perspective, one that focuses on the relations between the Persian-dominated Iranian state and the country’s ethnic minorities. The book explores the stability of the ruling regime in light of the challenges that multiethnicity brings. Persians comprise less than half of the population of Iran and more than 40 percent of Iranians lack fluency in the Persian language. An overwhelming majority of non-Persian groups inhabit most of Iran’s border regions; as such the book explores Iran’s foreign policy toward neighboring states that share co-ethnic populations. Iran’s ethnic minorities inhabit the state’s poorest provinces and the country’s growing environmental and water supply challenges hit the ethnic minority provinces harder than the Persian center, adding an ominous ethnic character to what are often presented as purely environmental or economic challenges. The book further examines the potential impact of ethnic based unrest in Khuzestan on Iran’s oil production, Iran’s main oil producing region. Drawing on a rich assortment of primary data and interviews, this book offers unparalled insights into ethnic politics in Iran. It will be of interest to upper-level undergraduates and postgraduates, researchers and professionals interested in the Middle East, international relations, and ethnic studies.

For centuries, Persian was the language of power and learning across Central, South, and West Asia, and Persians received a particular basic education through which they understood and engaged with the world. Not everyone who lived in the land of Iran was Persian, and Persians lived in many other lands as well. Thus to be Persian was to be embedded in a set of connections with people we today consider members of different groups. Persianate selfhood encompassed a broader range of possibilities than contemporary nationalist claims to place and origin allow. We cannot grasp these older connections without historicizing our conceptions of difference and affiliation. Mana Kia sketches the contours of a larger Persianate world, historicizing place, origin, and selfhood through its tradition of proper form: adab. In this shared culture, proximities and similarities constituted a logic that distinguished between people while simultaneously accommodating plurality. Adab was the basis of cohesion for self and community over the turbulent eighteenth century, as populations dispersed and centers of power shifted, disrupting the circulations that linked Persianate regions. Challenging the bases of protonationalist community, Persianate Selves seeks to make sense of an earlier transregional Persianate culture outside the anachronistic shadow of nationalisms.

A comprehensive but concise overview of Iran's politics, economy, military, foreign policy, and nuclear program. The volume chronicles U.S.-Iran relations under six American presidents and probes five options for dealing with Iran. Organized thematically, this book provides top-level briefings by 50 top experts on Iran (both Iranian and Western authors) and is a practical and accessible "go-to" resource for practitioners, policymakers, academics, and students, as well as a fascinating wealth of information for anyone interested in understanding Iran's pivotal role in world politics.

A new translation of the late-tenth-century Persian epic follows its story of pre-Islamic Iran's mythic time of Creation through the seventh-century Arab invasion, tracing ancient Persia's incorporation into an expanding Islamic empire. 15,000 first printing.

The Safavid dynasty, which reigned from the late fifteenth to the eighteenth century, links medieval with modern Iran. The Safavids witnessed wide-ranging developments in politics, warfare, science, philosophy, religion, art and architecture. But how did this dynasty manage to produce the longest lasting and most glorious of Iran's Islamic-period eras?Andrew Newman offers a complete re-evaluation of the Safavid place in history as they presided over these extraordinary developments and the wondrous flowering of Iranian culture. In the process, he dissects the Safavid story, from before the 1501 capture of Tabriz by Shah Ismail (1488-1524), the point at which Shiism became the realm's established faith; on to the sixteenth and early seventeenth century dominated by Shah Abbas (1587-1629), whose patronage of art and architecture from his capital of Isfahan embodied the Safavid spirit; and culminating with the reign of Sultan Husayn (reg. 1694-1722).Based on meticulous scholarship, Newman offers a valuable new interpretation of the rise of the Safavids and their eventual demise in the eighteenth century. "Safavid Iran," with its fresh insights and new research, is the definitive single volume work on the subject.