Social Histories of Iran: Modernism and Marginality in the Middle East

Abstract

This book, by a leading social historian of modern Iran, is not an integrated and chronological general history but, as the title suggests, a collection of six case studies, five of which were previously published as articles and book chapters. Together they offer provocative insights into how modernity and social and political marginality were experienced in Iran and the wider Middle East. They cover the formative late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, during which Iran experienced major social and political upheavals of global significance, including two major revolutions, military invasions and occupations by imperial powers, the emergence of oil capitalism, the Cold War, major land reforms, and the forced de-veiling of women by the Pahlavis and their re-veiling in the Islamic Republic, among others. Cronin challenges two prevailing trends in the historiography of Iran. The first is the nation-state-centered approach that frames Iranian history as exceptional and unique to its national territory and populations. The second are the top-down state and elite-centered frameworks that overlook the role of the subaltern classes and ordinary people in shaping this contested modernity. Instead, Cronin aims to unpack the agency and historical experiences of the poor, women, political activists, prostitutes, bandits, criminals, slaves, provincial and rural populations, workers, and small traders in navigating often violent historical transformations that shaped contemporary Iran and the Middle East. Throughout the book, Cronin links the national with the regional and the global to show how Iranian history has always been an integral part of currents beyond its national borders.Each chapter covers a different topic, ranging from the paradoxical role of secular revolutionary forces in the 1979 “Islamic” Revolution to the moral economy of food and the politicization of hunger under the Qajar dynasty; the political and social dynamics and public perceptions of criminality and the dangerous classes amid rapid social change, slavery, and abolitionism in Iran and the wider Middle East; and anti-veiling campaigns and the politics of dress. The great strength of the book is its comparative approach, placing Iran's modern social history within the larger context of Middle East and global histories by challenging “the routine fracture that separates the analysis of the national history of Iran from its global context” (2). “Methodological nationalism,” as the author calls it, is a significant issue that plagues academic studies and popular perceptions of Iran, as Cronin demonstrates in the first chapter (and only previously unpublished case study). The 1979 revolution was one of the largest social revolutions of the modern era. It was the result of a sustained and largely nonviolent mass movement against the monarchy that eventually triumphed through popular protests and general strikes. Yet instead of garnering intellectual and political curiosity like other events of this magnitude, it is now treated as an aberration following the violent ascendence of Khomeinist and radical Islamists. Rather than treating the Iranian Revolution as a historical anomaly, Cronin situates it at the juncture of two key moments in modern global history. First, she examines the tail end of the radical 1960s and 1970s, when “the educational revolution” produced a new global professional middle class of youth from middle- and working-class backgrounds who used university campuses to mobilize against conventional elites (including established parties on the left), social inequality, and imperialist wars. Second, she explores the advent of neoliberalism beginning in the 1980s—the reactionary countermovement that promoted the cults of individualism and market fundamentalism, epitomized by the elections of Reagan and Thatcher. Cronin shows how militant Iranian students and radical activists, at home and abroad, were shaped by these two historical moments. Like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, they organized against established political parties and elites, including the Communist Tudeh Party and the authoritarian Pahlavi regime. In solidarity with and inspired by other radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s—Latin American Guevarism, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and so on—significant segments of Iran's radicalized and increasingly educated youth gravitated toward armed struggle as “both strategy and tactic” (42). This was not limited to Marxists and secular radicals, since ideologically rival youths of Islamist and religious persuasion also became inspired by this uncompromising vanguardist militancy, forgoing advocating for social change through grassroots organizing among workers and other social groups to build a sustained and organized mass movement. Although numerically insignificant, these children of the “Red 1970s” had an outsized ideological effect on political culture when the revolution occurred.Cronin's analysis in this opening chapter is granular and fascinating. She pulls together transnational events, actors, and ideological trends to resurrect the habitus in which the Iranian Revolution unfolded. Yet I found myself in slight disagreement. For example, the ideological influence of Maoism and especially China's Cultural Revolution in Iran, but also in 1968 Paris and worldwide, are slightly caricatured or overlooked. Also, it's puzzling that the shock waves of concurring major events in Iran's neighboring countries—the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the coup d’états in neighboring Turkey, Iraq, and Pakistan—are left out, especially since these events undermined or discredited (Afghanistan) democrats and the secular left and strengthened radical Islamists. Ironically, given the topic of the book, Cronin's focusing on global ideological movements and her highlighting of the influence of organized vanguard groups and militant activists also tends to discount or overlook the agency of other, far more numerous, subaltern groups and classes in the revolution. What motivated these millions of ordinary participants to risk all and partake in social upheavals even when they did not belong to any of these ideological currents? The voices and experiences of these key actors remain unexplored. Could the chaotic dynamics of these unorganized masses have shaped the politics of vanguard elites, revolutionary Marxists, and militant Islamists, as much as the other way around? Addressing this question requires incorporating the findings of other sources excluded here—ethnographies, local social histories, oral histories, documentaries, memoirs, local press, and so on. By focusing on the global and national role of organized groups of vanguard leaders, the opening chapter overlooks the local and variegated personal experiences of the ordinary subalterns who also made this history. That said, Cronin's insights are a major contribution that reintegrate the study of the Iranian Revolution into a global history.Briefly, the essay titled “Modernism and the Politics of Dress: Anti-Veiling Campaigns in the Muslim World” is a brilliant comparative study of the politics of gender and social class that I regularly assign to my Middle East courses. Another noteworthy chapter examines banditry, smuggling, prostitution, and criminality in Iran and the wider Middle East in the context of violent and radical social disruptions that accompanied modernization and nation-state building. Other chapters examine slavery, abolitionism, and bread riots and food politics. I found one, “Noble Robbers, Avengers and Entrepreneurs: Eric Hobsbawm and Banditry in Iran, the Middle East, and North Africa,” not as substantive.Overall, this is a noteworthy work. The writing is clear, and the histories are told in a compelling manner. This book is a significant contribution to the comparative literature on subaltern social histories of modernity in Iran and elsewhere.