Document Type : Scientific-Research
Authors
1 PHD Candidate in History of Islamic Iran, Department of History, Faculty of Literature, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
2 Professor Department of History, Faculty of Literature, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
3 Assistant Professor Department of History, Faculty of Literature, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Oil historiography emerged from the events of the 1320s and the increasing role of oil in the transformation of society and the spread of oil colonialism. Mostafa Fateh, a high-ranking representative of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, made an important contribution to the development and promotion of oil historiography during the Pahlavi period with his the book Fifty Years of Iranian Oil. Based on the method of thematic analysis and interpretation of historical narratives, this study answers the question of the direction of Fatih’s historical thinking, what are the characteristics of his historiography, and what was his role as a high-ranking representative of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. This article hypothesis that Fatih plays a double positive and negative role in relation to oil. He considers oil as an important source of wealth and the cause of extensive investment and progress, and on the other hand, the cause of underdevelopment of Iranian society, and the reason is the corrupt ruling classes and elites who are inattentive and dependent on the government. The historian's view is based on the assumption that the colonial countries are the cause of the backwardness of the oil states and nations, but the historian has introduced England as the representative of colonialism, and its political position has dominated its historical vision. Fateh has presented the negative role of the British government as the main cause of the imbalance between oil and development in Iranian society more gently and covertly. By emphasizing negative role of domestic and foreign populations, he marginalizes the role of the British government in Iran's underdevelopment. Fatih's historiography can be described as “corporate-oil historiography.”
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