The book "Lumpenism" is a picture of Iranian society relying on this culture. The culture, which, despite the ef-forts of the intellectuals to remove them, not only did not disappear, but today has hegemony. The book "Lumpenism" is a research in the field of the social history of Iran, which is viewed by the socialists as a histori-cal and cultural trait. Considering the details of this culture according to the historical facts are the book's points, which is not just limited to the presence of Lumpens in important events such as the Constitutional Revolution. The book deals with one of the most important socio-cultural traits in Iran as a historical tradition. This tradition, which is rooted in the chivalrous principles, and is the common theme of the Iranian soul in various intellectual and social ways such as the structure of generosity, Sufism, heroic, chivalry, Gnosticism, and Shi'i, has under-gone a change throughout history. Although these developments caused the generosity and the chivalrous princi-ples to be continued, the course of this historical tradition was more towards degeneration and transformation into Lumpenism. So that many historic sociologists have confused this cultural-historical tradition with Lumpenism, raised by Karl Marx. In spite of the similarities with the Lumpenproletariat of Marx, in terms of his-torical and cultural backgrounds, the attitude of lumpens and their presence in Iranian society is different from Marxist Lumpenproletariat. Pondering this difference, the book tries to elucidate the historical and cultural back-ground of Lumpenism in Iran and to examine this group since it was active as a social marginal power but im-portant in political and social changes. Therefore, from the Qajar period to the present time (the Islamic Republic of) is a time of research. The book also shows the influential presence of lumpens in Iranian religious practices and customs that are still ongoing and their role in the events such as the chaos era of power transitions (after the death of the previous King), Constitutional Movement, Pahlavi regime period, the events after August 1941 and the religious move-ment on June 5, 1963. Since of Qajar period, Iranian culture has affected by the lumpens and Lumpenism attitude so that has also influenced Iranian literature and art. Although the lumpens did not have much aimed in Persian poetry literature, this marginal group has been the main subject of many books and films in prose literature, espe-cially cinema. However, during the reign of Reza Shah, Lumpenism was obsoleted and the lumpens were sup-pressed and limited for pursuit the intellectuals’ request and consolidation of the central government, but with his fall, they again returned to the realm of politics and society. After a period of activity that was most related to the monarchy system, they were eliminated in the religious movement on June 5, 1963. Mohammad Reza Shah, in the period of development of his power, which was accompanied by a kind of imperial modernization, considered the lumpens to be opposing to his political and social goals. This elimination made the monarchy system de-prived of the support of its traditional loyalists in the crisis times, and the lumpens, who had previously been allies of the jurists, would fully join the camp of dissidents. However, they did not have much role in the political culture in the first decade of the establishment of the Islamic Republic, but in the second decade, when the pane-gyrist and paramilitary groups especially Basij, got stronger, the lumpens' role was highlighted in the political and social culture. So that their discourse and literature penetrated to the official communities.

Reza Mokhtari Esfahani is an independent researcher in the field of contemporary history, whose background is in the field of social history, document research and oral history. He also conducted oral history interviews with many political and cultural figures in Iran, which is available at the National Archives of Organization of Docu-ments and the National Library of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Writing articles in journals is another aspect of his literary activities. His other scientific activities can be mentioned are the speech at the Conference of the 100th Anniversary of the Constitutional Revolution (2006) at the University of Oxford, the speech at the Confer-ence of the 100th Anniversary of the Establishment of Baladieh in Iran (2007) at the University of Tehran, the speech at the International Conference on the Role of Religions in Ethics, Peace, Amnesty and Friendship, Shi-raz, 2017.