The rise of modern states in Turkey and Iran are generally credited to two military leaders, Atatürk and Reza Shah. Often depicted as larger-than-life figures acting outside history, they are portrayed as fashioning modern states and new political arrangements single-handedly, bringing about transformations that had defied preceding generations. If some historical continuity is acknowledged in the best accounts – continuity with nineteenth-century reforms – it is widely agreed that something extraordinary was taking place under the new rulers, that something more fundamental than reform was indeed unfolding. This book should help make clear that, more than the new rulers, it was the preceding revolutions that were responsible for the radical reorientation to politics, institutions, religion, and nationality. Without the revolutions, the transformations later would indeed appear to be outside history.

The Ottoman Empire and Iran experienced near-simultaneous constitutional revolutions in the early years of the twentieth century. The present book explains why and how the revolutions happened and what made them constitutional. As part of that explanation, it enquires what the broad spectrum of actors understood by constitutionalism and why they joined the movement. Furthermore, it accounts for why the Ottomans and the successor Turkish republic fared better than Iran in preserving the new system. Its more general ambition is to propose a historically grounded understanding of revolutions. At a time when a wave of largely peaceful uprisings is sweeping the Middle East to bring about fundamental change, movements that have an eye on similar insurrections throughout the world and the region, it is time to take stock of the changing form of revolutions through history.