The Color Black

“In this pathbreaking study, Beeta Baghoolizadeh weaves together a social history of slavery in Iran; a feminist analysis of modern Iranian households and their racial underpinnings; a gendered reading of state policy on emancipation; and an intervention into the study of slavery and its afterlives. The Color Black is a tour de force of research and a beautiful and brilliant contribution to multiple fields.” - Sarah M. A.. Gualtieri, author of Arab Routes: Pathways to Syrian California

“Decentering the dominant lenses in Iranian studies, Beeta Baghoolizadeh advances a new understanding of Iran by showing how its modern construction of history was built upon the erasure of Black Iranians. Rigorously argued, ethically principled, and elegantly written, The Color Black is poised to be one of the most provocative and important new books in Iranian studies and Middle East studies.” - Neda Maghbouleh, author of The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race

"A serious, well-researched academic work on a topic that has not been directly addressed in our community worldwide. . . . Through her work, Baghoolizadeh shines a powerful light on an unjustly erased part of Iranian history." - Hooshyar Afsar, Peyk

"Beeta Baghoolizadeh has done an excellent job with her book The Color Black. Her research is very meticulous, yet not conveyed in an overwhelming way loaded with information. . . . The Color Black deserves attention for being a pioneering work on this subject which opens the way for future research, debate, and scholarship." - Forough Jahanbakhsh, Islamic Studies

"This well-organized book will lead its readers to reconsider the history, iconography, and historiography of enslavement in Iran. . . . This well-written, beautifully illustrated, and well-annotated book works well for those familiar with Iranian society and history. . . ." - George Michael La Rue, Iranian Studies

"The cutting edge of Baghoolizadeh's intervention, then, lies as much within the critical assessment of contemporary white Iranian (dis)imaginations of the nation's slave-holding past and racial construction of Blackness as it is an assessment of her historical archive of period photographs, drawings, paintings, legal records and travelogues. Too often the word 'erasure' is thrown around in contemporary critical history circles without a concrete methodology to elicit, map, and demarcate that process. Baghoolizadeh doesn't just gently offer a suggestion to listen to the silences of the archive. Her work is a command to snap out of it." - isaac dwyer, E3W Review of Books

"In directly confronting vocal opposition among many Iranians to studies about slavery in Iran, The Color Black opens our eyes to the historiographical and tangible stakes of critically examining cultural memories of enslavement in Iran." - Mari N. Crabtree, American Historical Review