Who Is Knowledgeable Is Strong: Science, Class, and the Formation of Modern Iranian Society, 1900-1950

by Cyrus Schayegh

In "Who Is Knowledgeable Is Strong, "Cyrus Schayegh tells two intertwined how, in early twentieth-century Iran, an emerging middle class used modern scientific knowledge as its cultural and economic capital, and how, along with the state, it employed biomedical sciences to tackle presumably modern problems like the increasing stress of everyday life, people's defective willpower, and demographic stagnation. The book examines the ways by which scientific knowledge allowed the Iranian modernists to socially differentiate themselves from society at large and, at the very same time, to intervene in it. In so doing, it argues that both class formation and social reform emerged at the interstices of local Iranian and Western-dominated global contexts and concerns.

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Farida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting read. The way the author links the development of sciences in Iran to the emergence of a new modern class is quite interesting. I particularly appreciated his attempt to create continuities between economic gain, class dynamics, and the establishment of a new image of post-Qajar Iran.