A Discourse Analysis of the Liberal Nationalism in History Textbooks (1304-1320)

One of the methods of studying historical events is discourse analysis. Throughout the modern history of Iran, the concept of nationalism has continued to exist in various forms with ups and downs. This concept was articulated in the discourse of "liberal nationalism" that began and eventually became the hegemonic discourse before the Constitutional Revolution.   With the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty, textbooks were used in the state discourse.  The ruling power used the discourse of authoritarian nationalism to justify the foundations of government and marginalize other discourses which clearly was expressed in the official history textbooks. Based on Laclau and Mouffe's theory of discourse analysis, this study seeks to see how the concepts, and process of identifying the discourse of liberal nationalism in the textbooks were expressed during the Reza Shah. Examining the textbooks at the time, this study argues that the concepts and components of the discourse of liberal nationalism remained around the central sign of the Iranian nation and the ruling discourse.