The Middle East plays a major role in the history of genetic science. Early in the twentieth century, technological breakthroughs in human genetics coincided with the birth of modern Middle Eastern nation-states, who proclaimed that the region s ancient history as a cradle of civilizations and crossroads of humankind was preserved in the bones and blood of their citizens. Using letters and publications from the 1920s to the present, Elise K. Burton follows the field expeditions and hospital surveys that scrutinized the bodies of tribal nomads and religious minorities. These studies, geneticists claim, not only detect the living descendants of biblical civilizations but also reveal the deeper past of human evolution.
Genetic Crossroads is an unprecedented history of human genetics in the Middle East, from its roots in colonial anthropology and medicine to recent genome sequencing projects. It illuminates how scientists from Turkey to Yemen, Egypt to Iran, transformed genetic data into t
Iranian family wear protective masks to prevent contracting a coronavirus, as they stand at Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran February 20, 2020. WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Nazanin Tabatabaee via REUTERS
The sclerotic ruling elite in Tehran had become corrupt and decadent, squandering the nation’s resources and becoming increasingly dependent on foreign superpowers like Russia. On the edges of the country, restless armed forces were agitating for change and, perhaps, even a dismemberment of Iran. Most importantly, the longtime rulers had lost the confidence of the country’s rising and increasingly anxious middle classes.
That was Iran exactly one hundred years ago, on the eve of the overthrow of the Qajar dynasty and the rise of Reza Khan, a Russian-trained army officer who seized power in a coup that coincided with the beginning of the fourteenth century on the Persian calendar. But that description of Iran would also be apt today, as it begins a new century in the year 1400.�