| Abstract | To access, purchase, authenticate, or subscribe to the full-text of this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00210862.2016.1210291 Author(s): Reza Zia-Ebrahimi pages 837-854 Special Issue: Special Issue Dedicated to Homa Katouzian This paper assesses the extent to which the modern historiography of Iran is indebted to a nationalist construction of Iran's past, rather than proceeding from impartial and critical historical research. The paper pursues this aim by applying the distinction between history (as a scholarly discipline) and memory (as a nationalist construct) to one of the central tropes of the country's historiography. According to that trope, Iranian history can be summarized as a succession of violent invasions by foreign 'races,' which never stamped out Iran's separate ethnic identity. This resilience is attributed to Iranian civilization's inherent superiority, which Iranianized the invaders and thus ensured Iran's survival as a primordial nation. The analysis shows that--counter-intuitively--twentieth-century Iranian historians, instead of subjecting this narrative to critical assessment, have in fact played a central role in developing it into a self-serving historiography. Special attention is given to Zarrinkub's seminal Two Centuries of Silence. Author Notes: Reza Zia-Ebrahimi is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of History at Kings College London. Reza Zia-Ebrahimi would like to thank Oliver Bast and Khodadad Rezakhani for their constructive comments on an earlier draft. Publisher name: Routledge [c] 2016 The International Society for Iranian Studies
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