Continuity and Change in Modern Iran

Edited by Michael E. Bonine & Nikki R. Keddie

Paperback : 9780873954662, 359 pages, January 1988

Table of contents

Preface

A Note on Transliteration

Introduction
Nikki R. Keddie

I. OVERVIEWS IN TIME

 

1. Religion, Society, and Revolution in Modern Iran
Nikki R. Keddie

2. Tradition and Change in Iranian Socio-Religious Thought
Mangol Bayat-Philipp

3. The Tranformation of Health Care in Modern Iranian History
Byron J. Good

 

II. NOMADS AND AGRICULTURALISTS

 

4. Economic Transformation Among Qashqa'i Nomads, 1962-1978
Lois Beck

5. Tent Scholl of the Qashqa'i: A Paradox of Local Initiative and State Control
Paul Barker

6. Khans and Kings: The Dialectics of Power in Bakhtiyari History
Gene R. Garthwaite

7. Persian Gulf Trade and the Agriculture Economy of Southern Iran in the Nineteenth Century
Roger T. Olson

8. Rural Socioeconomic Organization in Transition: The Case of Iran's Bonehs
Eric J. Hooglund

 

III. URBAN GROUPS AND CLASSES

 

9. The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Labor Movement in Iran, 1941-1953
Ervand Abrahamian

10. Shops and Shopkeepers: Dynamics of an Iranian Provincial Bazar
Michael E. Bonine

11. The Changing Status and Composition of an Iranian Provincial Elite
Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good

12. The Shirazi Provincial Elite: Status Maintenance and Change
William R. Royce

 

IV. ASPECTS OF CULTURE

 

13. Cinema as a Political Instrument
Hamid Naficy

14. A Full Arena: The Development and Meaning of Popular Performance Traditions in Iran
William O. Beeman

 

Notes

Contributors

Index

Description

These chapters on nomads, farmers, shopkeepers, labor organizers, provincial officials, and elites trace the network of tension and opposition that supported the revolution of 1978–79. Two chapters on religious leaders and the pervasive influence of religion in Iranian life illuminate the nature of change within a tradition, and chapters on cinema and theatre show the interaction between politics and culture.

By focusing on specific groups in Iranian society, the authors join the scholarly reassessment of those postwar theories of modernization that have proven inadequate. Their work indicates that our conception of "modern" may have to account for characteristics and societal relationships that only recently were thought to disappear during the course of "modernization. "

Michael E. Bonine is Assistant Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Arizona. Nikki R. Keddie, Professor of History at UCLA, has recently been elected President of the Middle East Studies Association.