Book contents
- What Is Iran?
- The Global Middle East
- What Is Iran?
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- What Is Iran?: A Playlist
- Prologue: Iran in the New World Order
- 1 Also sprach Zarathustra: Persian Longitudes
- 2 God and Politics: Inside the Islamic Republic
- 3 Strategic Preferences – Transnational Interests
- 4 The United States, Israel and the Global Right Wing
- 5 Eurasian Iran: ‘Resistance’ or a Persian Empire?
- Epilogue: A Symphony of Flowers
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Also sprach Zarathustra: Persian Longitudes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 March 2021
- What Is Iran?
- The Global Middle East
- What Is Iran?
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- What Is Iran?: A Playlist
- Prologue: Iran in the New World Order
- 1 Also sprach Zarathustra: Persian Longitudes
- 2 God and Politics: Inside the Islamic Republic
- 3 Strategic Preferences – Transnational Interests
- 4 The United States, Israel and the Global Right Wing
- 5 Eurasian Iran: ‘Resistance’ or a Persian Empire?
- Epilogue: A Symphony of Flowers
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This first chapter envelopes the topic of Iran with a global history. It is framed by Richard Strauss's symphonic poem Thus Spoke Zoroaster in order to demonstrate the book's central argument that the meaning of Iran escapes cloistered notions of 'identity' and/or ideology. The chapter shows that the area that is today’s Iran has been at the heart of civilisational and religious history since the beginning of time, alongue durée that does not make the task of understanding Iran any easier. Iran has produced and is a product of the world; few topics have zigzagged throughout global history with such a pronounced trajectory. Therefore, to understand Iran always also means to understand the past and present of global history. With close reference to philosophical concepts taken from the Avicennian tradition, this chapter sets the scene for the rest of the book, which attempts to place Iran out of our commonly known definitions of the country, its history, politics and international relations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- What is Iran?Domestic Politics and International Relations in Five Musical Pieces, pp. 21 - 41Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021