Abbas Amanat

When he was assassinated in 1896, Nasir al-Din Shah had sat on the Peacock Throne for nearly half a century. In this book, the first in English about Nasir al-Din Shah, Abbas Amanat gives us both a biography of the man and an analysis of the institution of monarchy in modern Iran. Amanat poses a fundamental question: how did monarchy, the center-piece of an ancient political order, withstand and adjust to the challenges of modern times, both at home and abroad? Nasir al-Din Shah's life and career, his upbringing and personality, and his political conduct provide remarkable material for answering this question. By examining the way Nasir al-Din Shah was transformed from an insecure crown prince and later an erratic boy-king in the 1840s and 50s into a ruler with substantial control over his government and foreign policy in the 1860s and beyond, Amanat explores a pattern in the consolidation of traditional monarchies as they accommodated themselves to the forces of modernity.

"This collection of essays is about Iranian identity in its various manifestations as it encountered the challenge of modernity. It problematizes the notion of an all-inclusive and universal "Iranian-ness" while considering the place of collective memory and sense of community. It consists of five parts organized along thematic lines. The first part, "The Legacy of Cultural Exclusion," deals with the medieval and early modern attempts to define notions of Iran and 'ajam and its supposed others--aniran, Turco-Mongols, and South Asians--through the Persian medieval epic, the Shahnamah, Persian literary histories and tazkirahs. The second part, "The Internal Frontiers," deals with the question of identity at the frontiers of Iran, including nineteenth century travel narratives in Khurasan, Azerbaijani regional re-readings of the significance of Babak Khorramdin, and Qashqa'i attitudes towards the "Iranian" state. The third part, "Empires and Encounters," examines the nature of Iranian interactions with Empires--Russian, British and Ottoman--in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with an emphasis of political and cultural "othering". The fourth part, "Identity and Iranian Political Cultures," discusses the Iranian intellectual engagement with Orientalism and the shaping of Iranian understandings of self and other in the twentieth century. Part five, "Globalized anxieties," expands on the theme of Iranian cultural anxieties--both domestically and internationally--and how the modern Iranian state (including the Islamic Republic) copes with the challenges of globalization, the treatment of its own minorities, and imagined domestic enemies. Finally, it addresses how Iranian diaspora communities negotiate their identities abroad, particularly in the United States"--

The Persianate World: Rethinking a Shared Sphere is among the first books to explore the pre-modern and early modern historical ties among such diverse regions as Anatolia, the Iranian plateau, Central Asia, Western Xinjiang, the Indian subcontinent, and southeast Asia, as well as the circumstances that reoriented these regions and helped break up the Persianate ecumene in modern times. Essays explore the modalities of Persianate culture, the defining features of the Persianate cosmopolis, religious practice and networks, the diffusion of literature across space, subaltern social groups, and the impact of technological advances on language. Taken together, the essays reflect the current scholarship in Persianate studies, and offer pathways for future research.

"The apocalypse is a theme common to all major monotheistic religions that have emerged from the Middle East. While this vision has expressed itself in different ways in each of the four monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam, the phenomenon is intrinsically similar. Exploring a range of ancient and modern cultural and religious experiences, and drawing on the interdisciplinary research of a group of scholars, this book highlights the importance of millennial and apocalyptic paradigms and their historical expressions in diverse settings. It demonstrates how visions of the End and eschatological scenarios - particularly the cycles of destruction and renewal in the canons of the major religions of the Middle East - have generated complex interpretations in cultures as diverse as early Judaism, classical Islam, medieval Europe, Africa, China, Iran and the United States. In the American context, unusually rich for religious experimentation, such motifs have given rise to prophetic visions and millennial hopes. What is the history of Millennialism? In what ways can patterns or phenomena that link the four faiths be discerned? Why has millennialism so p."--Bloomsbury Publishing.