Summary Of Taken For Wonder By Naghmeh Sohrabi

Defining militarism is essential for the Middle East, since militarism is more than simply a country using military methods for power. The countries of the Middle East show these other aspects of Vagts’s definition. Take the Qajar dynasty of Iran in the nineteenth century as an example. In Naghmeh Sohrabi’s work Taken for Wonder: Nineteenth-Century Travel Accounts from Iran to Europe, Sohrabi examines the work Chaharfasal, which gives an encounter by the Qajar court officials to Europe in which they saw a museum which, “on display there were old and new weapons from all states except from the exalted state of Iran” (Sohrabi 2012, 64). Then the work to goes on to say the official later sent an Indian sword to the museum, because Iran was not

There are other cases of militarism throughout its history. The Assyrians are another example, “the ancient Assyrians afford the clearest demonstration of past imperialism and militarism. They were a rude folk from one of the frontiers of civilization which have ever proved the revitalizers of war, providing fresh ambition, new weapons, and still more barbaric methods for breaking up the war patterns of settled societies” (Vagts 1981, 15). Vagts goes on to mention their efficiency and structure from the highest level, the Emperor, down to their supply chains. According to Vagts, the Assyrians were a militaristic society because they followed his definition by having the military seep into other parts of society with unlimited scope. Since the Assyrians were not a European empire like ones found later in the nineteenth century, but ruled the Middle East, militarism is not distinctly a European influenced phenomenon. However, the Assyrians were an ancient people, Vagts points out that the ancient civilizations were in conflict numerous times; so a case study on a more recent empire should appropriately highlight Middle Eastern militarism and its