Introduction

Summary

In remembering the 1978–9 Revolution, there is a scholarly convention of memory capturing our imagination. A consensus seems to be evolving that, at the cultural and intellectual levels, the revolution represented a sharp cultural war opposing the “modernist” Pahlavi state to a fiercely traditional “religious” opposition. Following this un-thought template, the revolution is recalled as a major confrontation between modernity and tradition. This book ventures a different and more nuanced analysis, arguing for a convergence of anti-modern, spiritual, and nativist discourse in both the Pahlavi state and the Islamist revolutionary movement. By focusing on the cultural transformations defining the 1960s and 1970s, the historical logic driving the revolution along anti-secular and anti-Western paths becomes considerably clarified.