Iran is more than Persia

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In theory, the Islamic Republic should have brought some fraternity to Iran's peoples, especially to the minorities who had engaged in insurgencies against the heavy-handedness of the Pahlavi shahs (1925-1979). That has not happened. The Persianization and centralization of the Iranian state have continued under the clerics. In practice, Islamization has been the obverse side of Persianization. Persianizing Islamists are an unintended tribute to the Pahlavis' success in creating a national identity from a recovered, reanimated past. To the ethnic minorities who are more agnostic, mystical, or anti-clerical (a large number among the Shia), the Islamic Republic's Persianization may even seem more onerous and insulting than that of the Pahlavi shahs. This monograph attempts to fill a serious void in English-language scholarship about Iran's ethnic diversity.