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Keivandokht Ghahari argues that the political language of modern Iran is shaped by three major discourses: "national-modernist," "socialist," and "Islamic." This study, which is based on her Ph.D. dissertation, undertakes an analytical examination of three influential journals--Kaveh (1916-22), Iranshahr (1922-27), and Ayandeh (1925-28)--which represented the dominant currents of "national-modernism" during the years marked by the emergence of Reza Shah (1925-41).
Ghahari uses the term "national-modernist" for this dominant ideational pattern based on her identification of notions of "nation" and "progress" presented in the three journals. Each called for a strong central government to create a unified Iran by means of a strong army and "education for all." For the "national-modernists," the creation of an Iranian nation-state represented the fundamental prerequisite for Iran's progress; they believed that only through these means could the political independence and territorial integrity of Iran be maintained.
Considering the hegemonic significance and the changing meaning of these terms in Iran's political discourse, Ghahari perceives her work as "a contribution to the research of Iran's modern political culture." Her work does fill a gap in contemporary research. It is a successful discourse analysis of a period of Iranian development that until the Islamic Revolution was so emotionally charged that it virtually precluded dispassionate research. Ghahari's work is therefore an example of the increasing professionalism of Iranian social scientists who have learned to deal with their own history in an increasingly detached manner. Her book is even more remarkable for its empirical...