Gharbzadegi (book)

Gharbzadegī (Persian: غربزدگی, lit. 'weststruckness') is a Persian non-fiction book by Jalal Al-e Ahmad, an Iranian intellectual, translator, and fiction writer,^[1] the first sections of which were published in 1341 SH (1962). Gharbzadegī conveys Al-e Ahmad's particular view regarding thought of Weststruckness and the perpetual, millennia-long war of the "evil" West against the "good" non-West. The year after some of its sections were released, Gharbzadegī was placed by SAVAK among the banned books. This book received almost unanimously negative reviews from critics.

The writing of Gharbzadegī was completed in 1340 SH (1961 or 62).^[a] Parts of it were published for the first time in the magazines Ketab-e Mah and Keyhan-e Mah in Mehr 1341 (September or October 1962).^[2] Subsequently, both magazines were shut down, and the book's second edition—which was supposed to be published a year later with additions—was banned by SAVAK until the 1979 Revolution.^[2] Despite being banned by the government, the book continued to be circulated and distributed clandestinely, effectively remaining available to almost anyone who sought it in the 1960s and 1970s.^[3]

Gharbzadegī received overwhelmingly negative critical reception, with Abbas Amanat in Iran: A Modern History describing Al-e Ahmad's theory of weststruckness as hurried, Third-Worldist, careless, and nativist, arguing that its "often erroneous and highly tendentious reading of the Iranian past" made it one of the "most damaging" Persian texts of the twentieth century due to its "overall contemptuous" tone and ideologically colored assertions.^[4] Mohammad Rahbar of BBC Persian echoes this view, calling the book a hasty, story-driven work that offers "an angry interpretation" of the disorder and backwardness of the Muslim East.^[5] Dariush Ashoori praises Al-e Ahmad's courage but sees his economic and historical reasoning as misguided, arguing that the author ultimately flees the Western world only to fall into Fundamentalism and reactionary.^[5] Sadegh Zibakalam traces the book's Anti-Western sentiment to the ideological traditions of the Tudeh Party.^[6] Mohammad Zakeri of Etemad newspaper finds the tone sharp and biting, judging the work left-leaning, somewhat superficial, yet unusually frank and courageous in its critique of the Pahlavi establishment.^[7] John Campbell of Foreign Affairs dismisses Al-e Ahmad's arguments as "shrill, often puerile" in his review of the English translation.^[8] Mohsen Ghane'-Basiri goes further, arguing that by treating the Western world as a monolithic totality, Al-e Ahmad turns the subject into something unexamined and metaphysical, thereby transforming the hooligan into a hero, removing technology and development from Iranian intellectual discourse, and leaving later affected-by-the-book-thinkers, unable to properly critique events from the 1960s to the 2010s.^[9]

• Weststruckness
• Westernization

• Amanat, Abbas (2017). Iran: A Modern History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300112542. LCCN 2017942532. OCLC 971223468.
• Campbell, John (Spring 1985). "Occidentosis: A Plague From the West". Foreign Affairs. Vol. 63, no. 4. Council on Foreign Relations. p. 927. JSTOR 20042345.
• Clinton, Jerome W. (December 15, 1984). "ĀL-E AḤMAD, JALĀL". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. I. pp. 745–747. Retrieved December 14, 2025.
• IBNA (2014). زیباکلام: کتاب غرب‌‌زدگی غیرمنصفانه است [Zibakalam: The book Gharbzadegī is unfair] (in Persian). Retrieved November 20, 2025 – via BaharNews.
• IBNA (2016). Elham Ebadati (ed.). قانع‌بصیری: کتاب غرب‌زدگی تکنولوژی و توسعه را از ادبیات روشنفکری ایران خارج کرد/ پیامد اثر آل‌آحمد قهرمان شدن لمپن‌ها بود [Qane'-Basiri: The book Gharbzadegī removed technology and development from the discourse of Iranian intellectuals / The consequence of Al-e Ahmad's work was the heroization of the hooligan] (in Persian). Retrieved November 20, 2025.
• Rahbar, Mohammad (2019). کتاب‌های صد سال اخیر ایران؛ غرب‌زدگی، تاریخ به روایتِ جلالی [Iran's books of the past century; Gharbzadegī, history as told by Jalal]. BBC Persian (in Persian). Retrieved November 20, 2025.
• Zakeri, Mohammad (2015). از رنجی که هنوز می‌بریم [From the suffering we still endure]. Etemad (in Persian). No. 3338. p. 7 – via Magiran.
• Zibakalam, Sadegh (2007). چگونگی تولد کتاب غرب‌زدگی جلال آل احمد: غرب‌ستیزی و غرب‌زدگی [How Jalal Al-e Ahmad's book Gharbzadegī was born: Anti-Western Sentiment and Weststruckness]. Iran (in Persian). No. 3732. p. 10 – via Magiran.

Gharbzadegī on Internet Archive