In 1721 the French philosopher Montesquieu posed the question Comment peut-on être persan? in the title to his famous Persian Letters (Lettres persanes). After centuries of invasion, murder, destruction and authoritarian rule, the decay of political theory and the increasing dissolution in Iran’s politics, this volume is an investigation into what the answer to that question might be today.

It explores the notion of what it is to be Persian and the idea of Persia as a means of investigating the soul of this fascinating nation, but not as it has been constituted in the past with reference to the political experience of antiquity (especially that of Greece and Rome), nor as an affirmation of the secular-rational project of modernity. Rather it examines the question of what it is to be Persian against the backdrop of centuries in which a common, plural subjectivity of Persian-ness has been continually delayed by those who, with or without ideologies, believed in politics only as a means of ruling or of being ruled without laws and in the absence of citizenship. The historical battle for social and political freedoms is still underway in Iran; and as the nation wrestles with the possibility of an extended period of political, social and cultural decline, it is a timely moment to return to the perspective embodied in the enlightened thinking of figures such as Mohammed Ali Foroughi (1877-1942), and his vision of a country possessing rational and moral capabilities, and of a possible renaissance of social and political institutions.

The Idea of Persia as it is presented here sees hope in the future as the means by which Iranians may liberate themselves from the duality of heroes and saints and remake their political mentality while staying true to an age-old idea of Persia, and to the author's belief in freedom as a virtue that has to be taught.