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.

Reza Zia-Ebrahimi revisits the work of Fath?ali Akhundzadeh and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, two Qajar-era intellectuals who founded modern Iranian nationalism. In their efforts to make sense of a difficult historical situation, these thinkers advanced an appealing ideology Zia-Ebrahimi calls "dislocative nationalism," in which pre-Islamic Iran is cast as a golden age, Islam is reinterpreted as an alien religion, and Arabs become implacable others. Dislodging Iran from its empirical reality and tying it to Europe and the Aryan race, this ideology remains the most politically potent form of identity in Iran. Akhundzadeh and Kermani's nationalist reading of Iranian history has been drilled into the minds of Iranians since its adoption by the Pahlavi state in the early twentieth century. Spread through mass schooling, historical narratives, and official statements of support, their ideological perspective has come to define Iranian culture and domestic and foreign policy. Zia-Ebrahimi follows the development of dislocative nationalism through a range of cultural and historical materials, and he captures its incorporation of European ideas about Iranian history, the Aryan race, and a primordial nation. His work emphasizes the agency of Iranian intellectuals in translating European ideas for Iranian audiences, impressing Western conceptions of race onto Iranian identity.

Rumour and speculation in Iran have been rife for generations that the BBC has had a hand in every political upheaval in the country. In this vein the BBC has become a notable element in the complex and tortured narrative of Anglo-Iranian relations. The BBC Persian Service was initially developed in 1940 to prepare and broadcast British war-time propaganda. And it has since been seen by many in Iran as an integral part of British policy-making in the region. Thirty years ago, the Shah of Iran regarded the BBC Persian Service radio as his 'enemy number one' and held it responsible for promoting the revolution of 1979. Only a couple decades earlier, the BBC Persian Service was widely accused for having been complicit in the CIA-led 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Musaddiq. And a decade earlier, the BBC Persian Service was strongly linked to the British-planned removal of Reza Shah in 1941. The BBC Persian service has frequently been perceived as an entity which was not simply a vehicle to record the changes occurring in Iran and throughout the Middle East, but rather an active agent of change. In this book, Annabelle Sreberny and Massoumeh Torfeh track the history of the BBC Persian Service, critically analysing both the assumptions that the BBC is a standard bearer for objective reporting and representations of it as a simple tool of Western interests. Also examining the history of relations between the Foreign Office and the BBC Persian Service, they demonstrate that these have never been pre-defined or rigid. Instead, they explore how both institutions have moved from an interest in what can crudely be called state-orchestrated 'propaganda' to a more subtle advocacy of fair and balanced journalism as the best agent of British values and influence.

The respective policies of the governments of Iran and Pakistan pose serious challenges to US interests in the Middle East, Asia and beyond. These two regional powers, with a combined population of around 300 million, have been historically intertwined in various cultural, religious and political ways. Iran was the first country to recognise the emerging independent state of Pakistan in 1947 and the Shah of Iran was the first head of state to visit the new nation. While this relationship shifted following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and tensions do exist between Sunni Pakistan and Shi'i Iran, there has nevertheless been a history of cooperation between the two countries in fields that are of great strategic interest to the US: Afghanistan, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Yet much of this history of cooperation, conflict and ongoing interactions remains unexplored. Alex Vatanka here presents the first comprehensive analysis of this long-standing and complex relationship.

Throughout his life the Shams-ul-Ullema devoted himself to advancing the Zoroastrian Faith, not only as a priest and teacher, but also as a writer. This volume of papers is authored by an international group of scholars and covers the history, philosophy, literature and language of Persia and the Indo-Iranians.

"A history of the relationship between Iran and America from the 1700s through the current day"--