Holliday, Shabnam J. (ed.). 2026. Sovereignty in Iran: Challenges to Eurocentrism from Ancient Iran to the Islamic Republic. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
This book is a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary collaborative project examining sovereignties as a plural concept through the case of Iran. In so doing it challenges Eurocentric assumptions in the Humanities and Social Sciences and covers sovereignty from ancient Iran to the Islamic Republic including the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.
Part One explores sovereignty in ancient Iran by looking at the Elamites through a theoretical lens, the Achaemenids, and the Parthians and Sasanians. Part Two explores how territory relates to sovereignty alongside other dynamics in the Safavid, Second World War, Pahlavi and Islamic Republic periods. Part Three then focuses on competing and co-existing sovereignties in the southern Persian Gulf at the beginning of the twentieth century in Kurdistan and its relationships with Iranian governments during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. A non-Eurocentric framework requires the reader to think about co-existing and competing sovereignties with an ‘Area Studies’ lens. This approach moves beyond periodised understandings of history and not only contributes to better understanding Eurocentrism but also enables a greater appreciation of contexts, complexities and agencies.
Table of Contents:
I. Sovereignties and Ancient Iran
1. Of Mountain and Plain: Sovereignty, Resilience, and Diversity in Elam
Brieg Powel
2. ‘Created’, ‘Seized’, and ‘Held’: Concepts of Sovereignty in the Old Persian Inscriptions of Darius I
Lloyd Llewelyn-Jones
3. From Earth and Water to Spandarmaz and Anahita: Women as Archetypal Agents of Emancipation and Sovereignty in Iranian Myths and Folktales
Saeed Talajooy
4. Sovereignty and the Parthian and Sasanian Kings
Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis
II. Navigating Territorial Sovereignties
5. The Safavids: An Argument for the Retention of Sovereignty on the Domestic and International Scenes
Andrew Newman
6. A Subjugated State or Member of the United Nations: How Sovereignty was Envisioned during the Occupation Years, 1941 – 1946
Rowena Abdul Razak
7. Sovereignty and the Pahlavi ‘Empire State’
Robert Steele
8. Seeking Spiritual Security: The Religion and Sovereignty Nexus in Iranian Foreign Policy during the Islamic Republic Era
Edward Wastnidge
III. Competing Sovereignties
9. Banning and Belonging: Sovereignty and Ethnicity in Bahrain and the Persian Gulf Coast, 1900-1941
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
10. The Clash of Sovereignties in Iran: Kurdistan and (Semi)sovereignty,
Marouf Cabi
11. Multiplicities of Sovereignty: Gender, State, and Intersectionality in Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom Uprising
Asma Abdi and Shabnam J. Holliday
Conclusion: Towards a Non-Eurocentric Approach to Sovereignty through Iran: Appreciating Complexity, Contingency and Agency
Shabnam J. Holliday