Iran entered the twentieth century with oxen and wooden plough. It exited with steel mills, one of the world's highest automobile accident rates, and, to the consternation of many, a nuclear program. This book narrates the dramatic transformation that has taken place in twentieth-century Iran. Since the main engine of this transformation has been the central government, the book focuses on the state, on how it was created and expanded, and how its expansion has had profound repercussions not only on the polity and economy, but also on the environment, culture, and, most important of all, wider society. Some repercussions were intended; others, especially protest movements and political revolutions, were not. This book may appear somewhat quaint and even insidious to those convinced that the state is inherently a part of the problem rather than solution of contemporary dilemmas. But since this book is about major transformations, and these transformations in Iran have been initiated invariably by the central government, it will focus on the latter hopefully without falling into the Hegelian–Rankean pitfalls of glorifying the state.

Through all the changes, Iran's geography and identity have remained remarkably constant. Present-day Iranians live more or less within the same borders as their great-grandparents. The region – three times the size of France and six times that of the United Kingdom – is demarcated in the south by the Persian Gulf; in the east by the deserts and mountains of Khurasan, Sistan, and Baluchestan; in the west by the Shatt al-Arab, the Iraqi marshes, and the Kurdish mountains; and in the north by the Aras River flowing from Mount Ararat to the Caspian Sea, and by the Atrak River stretching from the Caspian Sea into Central Asia.