The Projection of the Present into the Past: The Emergence of a Reactive Historiography in the Post-1979-Revolutionary Iran

Up until very recently, the biggest threat to a realistic and honest historiography of the past was the state-based, official, narratives of history. Thanks to the expansion of the digital media and Internet-based social sites, a new threat has now emerged -- what I have called the 'reactive historiography'. In an effort to counter the official narratives, this line of historical thinking tries to create an exact opposite of the former. The result is an equally misleading narrative of history, except in the opposite direction of the formal narrative. In this study, I have explored this new phenomenon in the case of Iran in the aftermath of its 1979 "Islamic Revolution". The clash of the 'official' and 'reactive' narratives in Iran is fed by the misreading, by both parties, of the following nine concepts: 1) the positive/negative roles of religion in society and politics; 2) the influence of 'zeitgeist' in informing social developments and social movements; 3) the (in)distinction between 'reason-based' and 'cause-based' explanations; 4) the (im)possibility of achieving competing societal goals; 5) the single/multiple causes of a social revolution; 6) the multiple dimensions of the national identities and the ways in which national identities are formed; 7) the confusion about the role and experiences of colonialism; 8) the ignorance of the life-cycles of revolutions; 9) the illusory -- backward/forward-looking -- bases of the 'projects of hope'. Based on an analysis of these nine themes, the contours of the emerging reactive historiography in today's Iran are drawn. The study highlights the significant role that sociological analysis can play in settling these misinformations, and discusses the broader implications of the findings for cases beyond Iran.