Making and Remaking Empire in Early Qajar Iran

By: null Assef Ashraf

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Synopsis: In 1722, the Safavid empire collapsed. An empire that ruled for over two centuries, in its heyday it spanned parts of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and present-day Iran. The decades following its fall were ones of unrest and discord, and it was only with the rise of the Qajars in the 1780s that a level of stability was restored. Assef Ashraf devotes this book to an analysis of the making of the Qajar empire. It adopts a socially-oriented approach to political history - an approach that examines the discourse and political practices, and the centers and peripheries, of empire. Each chapter focuses on a particular practice that was at the heart of Qajar governance - land administration, gift giving, marriage, political correspondence, provincial diplomacy, and territorial conquest and tribal relations. By situating the formation of Qajar Iran in its early nineteenth-century context, Ashraf highlights the overarching themes of transition and change.