The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver 1600 1730. By Rudolph P. Mathee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xxi, 290. $64.95.

Abstract

Since the revolution of 1979 there has opened a great gap in scholarship on the economic history of premodern Iran. As the author of the present study has appropriately noted, over the past two decades the historiography of premodern Iran has suffered from ideological constraints (on Iranian scholars) as well as lack of access to local sources for western scholars. In light of these limitations, the present study on the political economy of silk trade in Safavid Iran is a refreshing reminder that not all is lost in an otherwise hopeless situation. Using predominantly western (including Russian) archival sources, the author has made a significant contribution to the histories of western European (and particularly Dutch maritime) trade with Iran, of Safavid commerce, and of the politics of the Middle Eastern silk trade.