In this manuscript Ali Mirsepassi, a professor of Sociology and Near Eastern Studies at Hampshire College, broaches a question of the first importance. Why and how did Iranian intellectuals manage to embrace modernity while at the same keeping a critical distance from it? By deconstructing the discourse of modernity in general and its apprehension among Iranian intellectuals in particular, the author manages to provide a rich account of how Iranians negotiated with the multifaceted challenge of modernity. In the course of doing so he criticizes (neo) Orientalist accounts of how the ascendancy of political Islam was made possible in Iran. This book offers an insightful account of how despite its vociferous rhetoric; the Iranian discourse of authenticity was itself impregnated with modernist sensibilities.

Intellectual Discourse and the Politics of Modernization is a major addition to the field of Iranian intellectual history and deserves to be read by all those interested in this topic.