The Century of Humiliation

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There are some important correlates between Iranian history and Chinese because you have this long imperial tradition that gets sort of reimagined as a national history. The Treaty of Turkmenchi is still something that Iranians reference as example par excellence of a ripoff, like a deal that's so profoundly unfair. And then weakness in terms of the Khajar kings don't really allow very many reformists to reach high levels of state power. So for those who might know a little bit of broader Middle Eastern history, these are some of the same things that are happening next door. But there is a much more aggressive and concerted effort to reform the military, to reform education system, to transform the political structure

Featuring Eskandar Sadeghi and Golnar Nikpour on the history of modern Iran, from 1906 through the present. This episode is the first in a four-part series, covering the period from 1906 until 1941, from the Constitutional Revolution that imposed constitutional limits on the Qajar dynasty through the 1921 coup that brought to power Reza Khan—who then in 1925 deposed the Qajars and became Reza Shah, the first shah of the Pahlavi dynasty. We end just before the 1941 occupation of Iran by longtime imperial powers, Britain and the Soviet Union, which forced Reza Shah out and replaced him with his son, Muhammad Reza Shah—which is where we will pick up in episode two. RIP Mike Davis. Listen to his Dig interviews here: thedigradio.com/tag/mike-davis Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Read our newsletters and explore our vast archives at thedigradio.com