Reza Zia-Ebrahimi revisits the work of Fath?ali Akhundzadeh and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, two Qajar-era intellectuals who founded modern Iranian nationalism. In their efforts to make sense of a difficult historical situation, these thinkers advanced an appealing ideology Zia-Ebrahimi calls "dislocative nationalism," in which pre-Islamic Iran is cast as a golden age, Islam is reinterpreted as an alien religion, and Arabs become implacable others. Dislodging Iran from its empirical reality and tying it to Europe and the Aryan race, this ideology remains the most politically potent form of identity in Iran.

Akhundzadeh and Kermani's nationalist reading of Iranian history has been drilled into the minds of Iranians since its adoption by the Pahlavi state in the early twentieth century. Spread through mass schooling, historical narratives, and official statements of support, their ideological perspective has come to define Iranian culture and domestic and foreign policy. Zia-Ebrahimi follows the development of dislocative nationalism through a range of cultural and historical materials, and he captures its incorporation of European ideas about Iranian history, the Aryan race, and a primordial nation. His work emphasizes the agency of Iranian intellectuals in translating European ideas for Iranian audiences, impressing Western conceptions of race onto Iranian identity.

"An important work and should be read by anyone interested in modern Iranian studies.... Highly recommended." - Choice

"Zia-Ebrahimi’s study is daring, innovative, and meticulous and is an essential discussion—for both public and academic readers." - The Historian

"The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism deftly tackles one of the most poisonous and culturally destabilizing features of the modern Iranian cultural zeitgeist . . . This insightful monograph is as groundbreaking as it is incisive and it will surely become one of the standard ‘go-to’ texts on the subject." - British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

"Richly evocative and provocative . . . This is an original study that shows the immense complexity of Iranian nationalism." - Perspectives on Politics

"It is rare that an academic study centrally concerned with a nineteenth-century discourse is so urgently relevant to contemporary intellectual and political debates. Reza Zia Ebrahimi's first monograph is just such a work." - International Journal of Middle East Studies

"A brave book in that it is the first major attempt to address the unwelcome issue of the racist strand in Iranian culture, its origin and its divisive impact. It is to be highly commended for its innovative identification and definition of dislocative nationalism, and its original, wide-ranging argument." - Iranian Studies