Critique of the course of cultural history in Iran

Cultural history is an interdisciplinary approach to historiography that seeks to interact with the two main areas of the humanities i.e. history and culture. In general, existing Persian sources in the cultural history domain can be classified into two categories: a) Knowing cultural history, including: history, definition, theoretical bases, theories and theorists, introducing significant works and, presenting main issues as well as their analyses and criticisms; b) Applying cultural history, including: recognizing sources, topics, methods and approaches and providing solutions. In this research, taking into account the available Persian sources, the evolution of critical studies in the field of cultural history in Iran was analyzed and with respect shortcomings in existing researches, solutions were presented in order to systematize future researches for profound understanding and growth of this trend and its application to Iranian historiography. The data show that firstly there is a temporal dispersion and secondly there is a thematic discontinuity in the publication of sources as well as in this field of knowledge, theoretical foundations, theorists and critics, their methods and examples are not fully introduced and gap of critiques and analyzes is clearly evident. The results (solutions) presented are: 1) Defining an evolutionary study; 2) Determining translation priorities; 3) Providing critique and analysis of cultural history issues; 4) Trying to create the Iranian cultural history tradition by using intra-cultural theories; and 5) Paying attention to the main features of cultural history and adhering to it, avoiding confusion of main topics of cultural history.