Examining the culture and politics of the Iranian intelligentsia, this book analyzes the reasons why, over the past two decades, intellectuals have turned from secular ideologies, such as nationalism and socialism, to Islam. Drawing on a wide variety of primary sources, the book offers an account of the intelligentsia's attitude towards autocracy, modernity and the State. Starting from the mid-19th century, the author investigates Iranian intellectual life by placing modern writers in their time context, exploring the ways in which they continued or abandoned the themes and concerns of their precedessors, and considering the settings in which ideas are formed. He further reflects on the intelligentsia's experience of modernity, and on its role not simply as an agent in the transition to modernity, but as an integral part of the process of change itself.
- ISBN10 1850439680
- ISBN13 9781850439684
- Publish Date 1 December 1998 (first published 1 December 1997)
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Out of Print 14 March 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint I.B. Tauris
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English