Uneven development in Iran has been one of the concerns of country's statesmen and intellectuals for the past hundred years. The prevailing view of this uneven development has always attributed the causes of this decline to the culture of the Iranian people. Development in Japan, on the other hand, has been interpreted as a successful example of the culture of the Japanese people. This book challenges this "cultural perspective" and presents a materialist reading of the history of development in Japan and uneven development in Iran.