More than any other Factor, The Iranian Revolution of 1978–79 and its aftermath have contributed to the growth of the Iranian diaspora population worldwide. The revolution precipitated the exodus of Iranian exiles or political refugees, and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran further discouraged the return of many Iranians already abroad. As a result, by about 1990, 637,500 Iranians were enumerated in official national censuses of the following ten countries on four continents: U.S., Canada, West Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, France, Norway, Australia, Israel, and Japan.

With an Iranian population—defined as persons either born in Iran or of Iranian ancestry—of 285,000 in 1990, the U.S. contained nearly half (45%) of the Iranians living in the above-mentioned Western and Asian countries. This overwhelming concentration, an availability of good data on immigrants (including Iranians), and a number of Iranian students who have become social scientists in the U.S., have encouraged research on this group.

In 1990, The U.S. Census Reported that 226,123 Iranian immigrants were living in the U.S., a growth of slightly under 100,000 in a tenyear period. These were individuals who either were born in Iran, or were of Iranian ancestry but born outside Iran in a country other than the U.S. The almost doubling of this population over a short period of time, combined with the group's variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, has created some of the most diverse ethnic geographies in the U.S.

Traditionally, academic theories have focused on issues regarding chain migration, port of entry, the assimilation process, ethnic economy, and labor market participation to explain the geographic distribution of various ethnic groups and their shifts over time.

In his Study on Afsharid Historiography, Ernest Tucker has Shown that Nadir Shah's chroniclers depicted him as the restorer of the Safavid dynasty, and appealed to notions of Safavid legitimacy in their histories. One chronicler, Muhammad Kazim Marvi, accomplished this partly by relating how Nadir Shah found a tablet (lawḥ) upon which Timur had inscribed instructions for Nadir Shah. Although Marvi was predominantly appealing to Safavid legitimacy, in the process he also linked Nadir's name with Timur. Laurence Lockhart notes a number of similarities between Nadir and Timur, indicating instances where Nadir seems to have modeled his reign on Timur's. These include (1) Nadir's naming his grandson Shahrukh, (2) Nadir's wife and Timur's daughter-in-law (wife of Shahrukh) both sharing the same name, Gawhar Shad, and (3) Nadir's use of certain Timurid military tactics.

Folklore at the Turn of the Twentieth Century in a Very Broad sense is understood to encompass the expressive culture of any notable group of people. As implied by the original meaning of the word “lore” when the term “folklore” was coined in 1846, tradition is a vital ingredient of folklore. Yet not all folklore relies on centuries of tradition: Customs may become obsolete, live on submerged for centuries before being revived, or come into being all anew: Duration rather than historical roots makes folklore. The folk, on the other hand, is not necessarily constituted by the uneducated masses, as a conservative point of view would have it: Folklore is not germane to specific social strata but rather to substantial numbers of individuals sharing similar ideas or activities. In this sense folklore encompasses a wide range of cultural expression, ranging from popular beliefs and customs to myths, legends, and other genres of oral literature/verbal art. The obvious overlap of certain aspects in folklore studies and anthropology is inter alia signaled by contemporary Persian terminology, most commonly rendering folklore as farhang-e mardom and anthropology as mardom-shenāsi.

J. R. Walsh's Comments on the nature of historiography may appear strikingly simple and obvious, yet they provided the stimulus for this paper, which compares three minor Safavid historical works and aims to show that every document can: a) supply some historical information; and b) provide us with information about the author and the intention of the work.

All Cultures are Located in Place and Time. Exile culture is located at the intersection and in the interstices of other cultures. Physically placed outside its original homeland, it is mentally and emotionally both here and there, and, as a result, it is both local and global. Exile culture is not just physically, mentally, and emotionally [dis]located; it is also discursively and sociopolitically situated in a foreign land. Exile discourse, therefore, must be able to deal not only with the problem of location but also with the continuing problematic of multiple locations. Traditionally, mass media are considered as homogenizing agents that inculcate the dominant values. One of the key themes of my work in recent years, however, has been to describe and theorize about the manner in which these very media may also serve the opposite purpose by consolidating alternative values–which may be driven by differences in ethnicity, race, gender, class, nationality, religion, or politics.

Published in 1933, Walther Hinz's detailed study on the short and turbulent reign of Safavid Shah Ismacil II (984-85/1576-77), which he likens to that of Ivan the Terrible, has yet to be surpassed. Although Hinz consulted many Safavid chronicles then in manuscript, including a number which have yet to be published, his discussion of a major facet of the period's history, Shah Ismacil II’s religious policies, is based primarily on the account of Iskandar Beg Munshi in Tārīkh-i cālam-ārā-yi cAbbasī, which he essentially paraphrases. Hinz concludes that Shah Ismacil II’s pro-Sunni policies, including primarily his prohibitions against cursing the Companions of the Prophet and his attempt to remove the Shicite credal statement cAlīyun walī Allāh “cAli is the ally of God” from the coinage, resulted not from political expediency but rather from personal conviction. In the end, these policies failed. Realizing that he could not win over the Qizilbash and that he himself was in grave danger, Shah Ismacil rescinded his decrees, had his pro-Sunni ṣadr and advisor, Mirza Makhdum Sharifi, placed under house arrest, and reconfirmed his commitment to Shicism before the end of his short reign.

Encyclopaedia Iranica is a Unique Work. Prof. Ehsan Yarshater and his colleagues have performed a colossal task in preparing and publishing volumes I-VIII. Archaeology, numismatics, pre-Islamic architecture, and art have all been dealt with comprehensively. I have divided the articles into the following groups: 1) Archaeology, architecture, and art; 2) archaeological periods; 3) material culture, architecture and art, and groups of artifacts; 4) monuments; and 5) varia. These articles were written by prominent specialists, many of whom participated personally in the excavations of the relevant monuments or examined them on site.

As in Many other Countries Around the World, A Gender based double standard (one set of social and moral norms governing the male and another governing the female) has always existed in Iran. In modern Iran, prior to the 1978-79 revolution, the traditional Iranian family was patriarchal and patrilineal. From early childhood, members of each gender were initiated into their respective roles and were socialized to a double standard of sexual morality. For instance, women who sought and experienced the same privileges of sexual freedom as men were not respected, but rather became victims of social ostracism. Women suffered from many social disadvantages, and their position, in most cases, was far from equal to men's.

Because pre-revolutionary Iran was a traditional society, the issues of dating and intimate relationships, especially for young women, were sensitive. Some of the sharpest contrasts between Western values and traditional Iranian values existed in these areas.

Combining Aesthetic Intent with Utilitarian Value, Hand-Crafted objects may be beautiful as well as functional. Crafts rely upon human ingenuity and productivity. They encompass both the products and the processes of production that comprise most aspects of material culture. The crafts of preindustrial Iran achieved distinction for their high levels of technical and aesthetic accomplishment. At different times in Iranian history, crafts sustained local economies, generated income from trade, and brought international fame.

As with all arts, crafts tend to be culturally expressive, exhibiting styles that may be geographically and temporally defined. Determinants of style may include availability of materials, local traditions of craftsmanship, levels of state intervention and other sources of influence, as well as aesthetic preferences. In Iran, from household production for home consumption to cottage industry and commercial city workshops, and from nomadic encampments to court ateliers, crafts represent products of nomads, rural villagers, city dwellers, and courtiers.

An important event in the early modern history of india was Nadir Shah's conquest, culminating in the battle of Karnal and the sack of Delhi in the spring of 1739. During this campaign, Nadir looted a huge part of the Mughal treasury, including the fabled Peacock Throne and the Kuh-i Nur diamond, and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of citizens of Delhi in a great slaughter carried out by his army. Historians of India have viewed this invasion as a crushing blow from which the Mughal dynasty never truly recovered, paving the way for European power to become established on the subcontinent in the next few decades. It has been remembered by some Iranian historians as Nadir's crowning military achievement, after which he denied his country the benefits of his victory, wasting away the final years of his reign in an orgy of terror and blood.

For Second-Generation Iranians in the Untied States the question of identity is not as easily settled as it is for their parents. Their parents claim they are genuine Iranians because they were born and raised in Iran, they relate to Iranian culture more than to American culture, they were active members of the Iranian society for decades, they might still have immediate family members in Iran, and they still hope to go back there someday. Are second-generation Iranian youths able to make these claims? Do they think of themselves as Iranians? Apart from the fact that some were born in Iran, might still know the Persian language, and are familiar with some aspects of Iranian culture, what else about these young people makes them distinctly Iranian?

Sociological studies of immigrants indicate that the first generation's pattern of adaptation is quite different from that of the second and third.'

Identity implies the other. As there is no self-definition without a view of the Other, the process whereby the “Self” discovers the “Other” is crucial to the formation of a self-image, for individuals as much as for groups of people claiming a collective identity. Historically, this process has never been more acute and intense than with the explosion of intercultural contact between Europe and the rest of the world following the so-called Age of Discovery. Nothing matches the radical novelty and drama of the first encounter between Europeans and the inhabitants of the New World. Though different inasmuch as it built on previous, intermittent contact and thus lacked the shock element of the utterly outlandish and bizarre, Europe's interaction with most of the major peoples of Asia in early modern times was hardly less transformative in the long run. Unprecedented in frequency and intensity, European-Asian contact as of the sixteenth century began to undermine the exotic notions and fabulous images that had formed and developed since Antiquity and that, over time, had been allowed to harden into convention.

Approximately Sixty Entries in Volumes I-VI of Encyclopaedia Iranica deal with painting and calligraphy in Islamic Iran. While Priscilla Soucek has contributed many of these, other authors include Dorothea Duda, B.W. Robinson, Barbara Schmitz, M. Dabirsiaqi, A.S. Shahbazi and Thomas Lentz. Anthony Welch, Jennifer Scarce, G. A. Pugachenkova, Soucek, and Robinson have also written general entries on art in Iran in the Islamic period. Rather than treat each entry individually, this review will assess the contribution of each author, characterizing his or her approach and noting some but not all of the entries on painters and calligraphers and their work. Additionally, this review will consider James Allan's article on ARMOR, May Beattie's on the ARDABIL CARPET, Dorothy Thompson's on silk (ABRĪŠAM), and 34 articles on CARPETS and CLOTHING.

Taken as a whole, the 34 entries by Priscilla Soucek validate her reputation as an extremely rigorous scholar of Iranian painting and calligraphy. Professor Soucek's entries raise our hopes that she will eventually publish the definitive book on these fields.