As its title promises, this book attempts to provide a history of modern Persian literature in the context of the political changes and developments in Iran since the early 20th century. Drawing on theoretical concepts in the social sciences, Talattof offers an analytical model for the study of literature, which he terms “episodic literary movement.” Accordingly, he observed, “Persian literary history is not an integrated continuum but a series of distinct episodic movements” (p. ix). He then identifies four such episodes or episodic movements in modern Persian literature and examines each of these movements in separate chapters. “Persianism” is a term he uses to describe the first episode, which “refers to an ideology that not only inspired authors to write in a new style with the hope of modernizing literature but also made that ideology the theme of literary works” (p. 4). Usually referred to as modernism, and sometimes as nationalism, by other scholars to describe the works of one group of Iranian writers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to the author, Persianism is a literary movement that “reflected upon and deeply criticized many aspects of Iranian national characteristics, including social life and traditional culture but excluding the Persian language” (p. 25). The second episode, according to Talattof, is the movement that became known as Committed Literature, in which “Marxist ideology shaped the works of the majority of writers, whose themes revolved around issues of equality, justice, and freedom, colored by Iran's own cultural particularities” (p. 5).