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...

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