This book challenges the anachronistic construction of Iranian identity, claiming that the nationalist historiography by the European Orientalists influenced the modern Iranian nationalist intelligentsia and literati, leading to the adoption of a broad nationalist construction of identity to suit Iranian political and ideological circumstances.

The central thesis of this book challenges the anachronistic construction of Iranian identity, claiming that the nationalist historiography first undertaken by the European Orientalists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries eventually influenced the modern Iranian nationalist intelligentsia and literati, leading to the adoption of a broad nationalist construction of identity to suit Iranian political and ideological circumstances. This book also argues that such a broad-brushed approach and the term "Iranian" could not have applied to the large multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural populations in the vast territory of Iran over so many distinct historical periods - as employed by academicians and eager nationalists.