Occidentosis is the best known and most influential work of the Iranian intellectual and writer, Jalal Al-i Ahmad. In a sense, it is the record of a personal journey to a new understanding of Iranian society and history, but since it aroused a widespread and enthusiastic response (to the degree that the coined word of its title permanently entered the Persian language), it may also be regarded as a document of the ideological ferment that ultimately led to revolution.To summarize, Gharbzadagi cannot be presented as a decisive and pioneering work of revolutionary thought, fully in tune with the historical forces that were to bring about revolution. Nonetheless, it has a solid if modest claim to lasting attention, as the record of an eloquent diagnosis of the major ill of Iranian society by one whose life was devoted to constant, sincere, and solicitous reflection on the state of his countrymen and who contributed to a partial reorientation of the Iranian intelligentsia.
1
