Contribution to Book
‘The Persian State’ and the Safavid Inheritance: Views from the Caspian, 1722–1781
The Contest for Rule in Eighteenth-Century Iran
(2022)
Abstract
This volume explores the troubled eighteenth century in Iran, between the collapse of the Safavids and the establishment of the new Qajar dynasty in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Despite the striking military successes of Nader Shah, to defeat the Afghan invaders, drive back the Ottomans in the west, and launch campaigns into India and Central Asia, Iran steadily lost territory in the Caucasus and the east, where Persian arms failed to recover lands lost to the Afghans and the Ozbeks. The chapters of this book cover the continuity and change over this transitional period from a range of perspectives including political history, historiography, art and material culture. They illuminate the changes in Iran's internal conditions, including the legitimising legacy of the Safavid period in court chronicles, the rise of Nader Shah and his influence on the idea of Iran, as well as the art of successive dynasties competing for power and prestige. The volume also addresses Iran's changed international situation by examining relations with Russia, Britain and India, the result of which would contribute to its re-emergence with a curtailed presence in the new world order of European dominance.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2022
Editor
Charles Melville
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing
Series
The Idea of Iran Vol. II
ISBN
9780755645954
Citation Information
Gledhill, K. (2022). The Persian State' and the Safavid inheritance: Views from the Caspian, 1722–1781. In C. Melville (Ed.), The contest for rule in eighteenth-century Iran: Idea of Iran Vol. 11 (pp. 57-80). Bloomsbury Publishing.