aawsat.com, Amir Taheri :

IRAN A MODERN HISTORY
By Abbas Amanat

Throughout the history of writing history, that is to say since Herodotus put pen to paper, Iran has always attracted and at the same time repelled those who for a variety of reasons took an interest in its complex character as a major actor in world events over millennia. Often, the interaction of that fascination and rejection made it difficult if not impossible to construct an objective narrative of the Iranian story. As a result, Iran was, and, as the author of this hefty oeuvre professor Abbas Amanat admits remains subject to a method of scrutiny that he labels “history with an attitude.” In practice, this means that those who write about Iran also write about themselves at least in the sense of how their generation or contemporary scholarship views historic events.

Go to link