Description

First published in 1827 ranks among the finest – and earliest – works of ethnography produced on Iran. The author was among the first to give the Iranians themselves a voice. In engaging in discussions with his interlocutors he was able to pierce the surface of Iranian political culture and society, providing a nuanced understanding devoid of much of the condescension that was to afflict later European writers. This was an Iran shorn of the panoply and complexities of modernity and it is no surprise that scholars of Iran have valued it, even if because of its age and prose style, it has long since been marginalised if not totally forgotten among a wider readership.