This was the end of a national identity.

This was the end of a national identity. The next three chapters describe the earliest signs of the illness, the wellsprings of the flood, and the first infections. In these chapters Jalal gives an account of the historical events leading to the ultimate surrender of the East to the West. The villain of this long drawn drama is the machine-a substitute for Fate, the villain in the classical Western play-as a tool of the demigods of money and political power in Iran.

The delayed reaction on the part of the East, like that of Shakespearian hero Hamlet, comes to the…