Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century / / Ali Gheissari.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Texas Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Gheissari, Ali,
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2021]; ©1997
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (263 p.)

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, Iranian intellectuals have been preoccupied by issues of political and social reform, Iran's relation with the modern West, and autocracy, or arbitrary rule. Drawing from a close reading of a broad array of primary sources, this book offers a thematic account of the Iranian intelligentsia from the Constitutional movement of 1905 to the post-1979 revolution. Ali Gheissari shows how in Iran, as in many other countries, intellectuals have been the prime mediators between the forces of tradition and modernity and have contributed significantly to the formation of the modern Iranian self image. His analysis of intellectuals' response to a number of fundamental questions, such as nationalism, identity, and the relation between Islam and modern politics, sheds new light on the factors that led to the Iranian Revolution—the twentieth century's first major departure from Western political ideals—and helps explain the complexities surrounding the reception of Western ideologies in the Middle East.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Preface -- Note on Transliteration and Dates -- List of Bibliographic Abbreviations -- I Introduction: Modern Intellectualism in Iran -- 2 Intellectuals in the Constitutional Period -- 3 Intellectuals and State Nationalism, 1921-1941 -- 4 Politics and Literature, 1941-1953 -- 5 Critique of Westernism and Debates over Modernity -- 6 Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index