Book excerpt: With the 1978-79 Revolution in Iran, the Pahlavi dynasty fell and was replaced by the Islamic Republic. In the decades since the Revolution all sectors of Iranian society, from the middle-class villas of northern Tehran to the remotest villages and nomad camps, have undergone profound changes. For many years the country was difficult to access by outsiders. Foreign media provided images of bearded men toting guns, veiled women in the cities and the horrors of the war with Iraq, yet little was known of what was going on in the countryside. Some nomad tribes were reported to be barely surviving after suffering discrimination and reductions in numbers in the last years of the Pahlavis, whereas others were said to be experiencing something of a renaissance. This book documents the life of the nomads in Iran at the end of the twentieth century.