ABSTRACT
The trajectory of twentieth-century Iranian history is best understood in terms of the antinomies of global modernity rather than the unfolding of a coherent national script. The revolutionary birth of the modern nation-state in the early twentieth-century found ideological expression primarily in Marxism and nationalism. Marxism was systematically repressed and yet exerted a continuous impact during the Pahlavi era (1920s-70s) of authoritarian nationalism and modernity. By the 1970s, and indebted heavily to both Marxism and nationalism, a powerful discourse of nativism and authenticity emerged, preparing the ideological grounds for the hegemonic rise of Islamist forces in another revolutionary upheaval.
