Table of Contents

• GREAT BRITAIN i. INTRODUCTION

  Multiple Authors

  During the 16th century, several unsuccessful attempts were made by the Muscovy (or Russia) Company of London to develop trade between London and Persia via Russia.

• GREAT BRITAIN ii. An Overview of Relations: Safavid to the Present

  Denis Wright

  Prior to the Safavid period, contacts between Britain and Persia were confined to the 13th century, and were infrequent and of short duration.

• GREAT BRITAIN iii. British influence in Persia in the 19th century

  Abbas Amanat

  British imperial interests in Persia in the Qajar period were primarily determined by the concern for the security of colonial India and, secondarily, by trade, telegraphic communication, and financial or other conces-sionary agreements.

• GREAT BRITAIN iv. British influence in Persia, 1900-21

  Mansour Bonakdarian

  In the late 1890s, the Foreign Office in London came to regard Germany as the main threat to the European balance of power and British imperial hegemony around the globe.

• Great Britain v. British influence during the Reżā Shah period, 1921-41

  Stephanie Cronin

  During the reign of Reżā Shah (1925-1941) a profound transformation took place in both the character and the scope of British influence in Persia.

• Great Britain vi. British influence in Persia, 1941-79

  Fakhreddin Azimi

  For the greater part of the Qajar era (1796-1924) Persia was the scene of intense rivalry between the Russian and British empires.

• Great Britain vii. British Travelers to Persia

  Denis Wright

  The British, more than any others, have been prolific authors of travelogues, and memoirs about Persia.

• Great Britain viii. British Archeological Excavations

  St. J. Simpson

  excavations began in Persia before the so-called “French monopoly” on archeological excavations.

• Great Britain ix. Iranian Studies in Britain, Pre-Islamic

  A. D. H. Bivar

  Several fields of pre-Islamic Iranian Studies have seen great expansion during recent centuries, and to these, scholars and travelers from Great Britain have made substantial contributions.

• Great Britain x. Iranian Studies in Britain, the Islamic Period

  Charles Melville

  British interest in, and scholarship on, Persia and Persian culture in the Islamic period goes back to the first formal contacts between the two countries, that is, at least to the 16th century and the growth of Britain’s involvement in the Levant and East Indian trades.