Iran's Quiet Revolution
The Downfall of the Pahlavi State

A new perspective on Iranian politics and culture in the 1960s-1970s documenting the 'Westoxification' discourses adopted by the Pahlavi State.

Ali Mirsepassi (Author)

9781108485890, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 August 2019

250 pages
23.4 x 15.8 x 1.7 cm, 0.47 kg

'Mirsepassi interprets the Pahlavi monarchy's collapse during the 1979 revolution as resulting from internal tensions, which originated among Iranian cultural and political elites seeking a merger of Persian and Shi'a traditions while rejecting a vision of corrupt materialistic Westernization to achieve a purified spiritualism … Recommended.' D. A. Meier, Choice

Offering a new perspective on Iran's politics and culture in the 1960s and 1970s, Ali Mirsepassi challenges the prevailing view of pre-Revolution Iran, documenting how the cultural elites of the Pahlavi State promoted a series of striking 'Gharbzadegi' or 'Westoxification' discourses. Intended as ideological alternatives to modern and Western-inspired cultural attitudes, these influenced Persian identity politics, and projected Iranian modernity as a 'mistaken modernity' despite the regime's own ferocious modernisation programme. Focusing on the cultural transformations which defined the period, Mirsepassi sheds new light on the Pahlavi State as an ideological gambler, inadvertently empowering its fundamentalist enemies and spreading a 'quiet revolution' through secular and religious civil society. Proposing a new theoretical framework for understanding the anti-modern discourses of Ahmad Fardid, Jalal Al-e Ahmad, and Ali Shari'ati, Iran's Quiet Revolution is a radical re-interpretation of twentieth century Iranian political history which makes sense of these events within the creative, yet tragic Iranian nation-making experience.

Introduction. The Quiet Revolution
1. The 'Anti-Modern' allure
2. De-politicizing Westoxification: the case of 'Bonyad monthly'
3. Ehsan Naraghi: chronicle of a man for all seasons
4. Iranian cinema's 'Quiet Revolution '(1960s-70s)
5. 'Bearing witness' to Iranian modernities
6. The Shah: a modern mystic?
7. The imaginary invention of a nation: Iran in 1930s and 1970s
8. An elective affinity: variations of Gharbzadegi.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]