Politics of Culture in Iran is the first comprehensive study of modern anthropology within the context of Iranian studies and politics in the twentieth century.

This book analyzes the ways in which anthropology and culture in Iran has interacted with Iranian politics and society. In particular it highlights how and why anthropology and culture became part of wider socio-political discourses and how they were appropriated and rejected by the pre- and post- revolutionary regimes. The author shows that there have been three main phases of Iranian anthropology, corresponding broadly to three periods in the social and political development of Iran and include:

? The Period of Nationalism: lasting approximately from the Constitutional Revolution (1906-11) and the end of the Qajar dynasty until the end of Reza Shah's reign (1941).
? The Period of Nativism: from the 1950s until the Islamic Revolution (1979)
? The Post-Revolutionary Period

This book also places Iran within an international context by demonstrating how western anthropological concepts, theories and methodologies affected epistemological and political discourses in Iranian anthropology. Politics of Culture in Iran is essential reading for those with interests in Iranian society and politics and anthropology.