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The Pahlavi National Library Project: Education and Modernization in Late Pahlavi Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Robert Steele
Robert Steele*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter, Research interest in the political and cultural history of contemporary Iran and the Middle East
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Abstract

This paper examines the Pahlavi National Library, the planning for which began in 1972 and expired in 1978 on the eve of the Islamic Revolution. The Pahlavi National Library was to rank in size and eminence with the great libraries of the world, yet this extraordinary project has hitherto received little to no scholarly attention. Using documents primarily from the archives of the shah’s cultural counsellor at the imperial court, Shojāʿeddin Shafā, this paper looks in detail at a number of initiatives spearheaded by Shafā from the early 1960s, which essentially laid the groundwork for the Pahlavi National Library, in order to understand how the shah’s regime used culture and scholarship to further its political goals. The paper proceeds to investigate the Pahlavi National Library, analyzing it in the context of the shah’s domestic and foreign policy objectives.

Keywords

Mohammad Reza Shah PahlaviShojāʿeddin ShafāPahlavi National LibraryShahestān PahlaviModernization in the Late Pahlavi PeriodIran Imperial Court
Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 1-2 , March 2019 , pp. 85 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2019

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Footnotes

Many thanks to Michael Axworthy, Ali Gheissari, Ranin Kazemi and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on this paper. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Claudine Shafa, who facilitated my access to the archives of her late husband in Paris.

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