Related Guides
Background Sources
- Iran's Diverse Peoples: A Reference Sourcebook Spanning a 5,000-year period, this is the first work to document the origins, evolution, and current status of all major ethnic groups in Iran. From ancient civilizations of 3000 B.C. to the election of President Mohammad Khatami five millennia later, Iran's history is a rich palette of conquests, invasions, occupations, and revolutions. Iran's Diverse Peoples: A Reference Sourcebook documents for the first time the major ethnic groups that emerged during each era and traces their evolution to the present day.
- Iran today : an encyclopedia of life in the Islamic Republic Iran Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic offers crucial insight for students and the general reader into an often misunderstood and complex country that is shrouded in mystery and misperception. Heir to a long history and a great culture and civilization, Iran embodies a rich, complex, and diverse mosaic that defines its national identity.
- Encyclopaedia Iranica This link opens in a new window A multi-disciplinary reference work and research tool designed to record the facts of Iranian history and civilization. A precisely documented reference work on the lands, life, culture and history of all Iranian peoples and their interaction with other societies.
- Countries and their Cultures Presents the cultural similarities within a country that set it apart from others by examining over 200 countries to document the myriad ways in which culture defines and separates the nations of the world as much as geographical borders do. Surveys each country's shared values, behaviors and cultural variations from foods and rituals to pastimes and arts, using a standard entry format for easy comparison.
- Encyclopaedia of Islam This link opens in a new window Includes "articles on distinguished Muslims of every era and origin, on tribes and dynasties, on crafts and sciences, on political and religious institutions, on the geography, ethnography, flora and fauna of the various countries and on the history, topography and monuments of the major towns and cities" of the Islamic world.
- Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures This link opens in a new window Focuses on women and the civilizations and societies in which Islam has played a historic role. Surveys all facets of life (society, economy, politics, religion, the arts, popular culture, sports, health, science, medicine, environment, etc.) of women in these societies.
- Grove Music Online This link opens in a new window Typically known as "The Grove" after its most recent print version of 2001, its encyclopedic online content on people, works, terminology and sources, has been expanded to include both legacy and more recent publications of Grove Opera (1992), the Grove Jazz 2nd ed (2002), the AmeriGrove, and Grove Instruments. Notated music examples are embedded. Articles are selectively updated or added three times annually.
- Grove Art Online This link opens in a new window Grove Art Online is an encyclopedia covering both Western and non-Western art and all aspects of visual culture. Articles include bibliographies and searchable images. As part of Oxford Art Online, keywords also are simultaneously searched in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and The Oxford Companion to Western Art.
- Iran: A Country Study Electronic version of a book previously published in hard copy as part of the Country Studies Series by the Federal Research Division. Intended for a general audience, books in the series present a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of select countries throughout the world. Each book was written by a multidisciplinary team of social scientists, who sought to adhere to accepted standards of scholarly objectivity. The books represent the analysis of the authors and should not be construed as an expression of an official U.S. government position, policy, or decision.
- Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: Central and Southwest Asia Central and Southwest Asia explores dress history and practices throughout the vast area linking central Asia to the Eastern Mediterranean. The birthplace of three world religions, this is a region shaped by cultural legacies: Arabs, Iranians, and Ottoman Turks have all left stunning and enduring artistic forms. This volume is the only major work to cover the full range of dress across this region, from the historic Silk Road, which played a vital role in linking dress and textile traditions in the area, to topics rarely before investigated, such as Kurdish dress, the role of the hajj market, and Afghan fashion shows.
- "Iranian Fashion in the 21st Century," in Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion Fashion in the twenty-first century in Iran has become highly inventive, surprisingly innovative, and undoubtedly glamorous. This is a surprise to some in the West who are accustomed to seeing images of large public gatherings of men and women in drab clothing engaged in religious or political activities that seem to be decidedly lacking in any elements that could be called “fashionable.” Women in particular are portrayed in the all-enveloping chador, usually solid black, which has become a Western trope for female repression.
