Until now, there have been no books and only a few articles available in English that deal with the actual practice of medicine in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Iran. Willem Floor's Public Health in Qajar Iran fills this lacuna, giving a broad and comprehensive survey of the state of public health, medical practice, and its practitioners in 1800-1925. Based on firsthand accounts of European travelers and doctors who practiced and observed medical treatment, the study provides an overview of the major diseases the population suffered and how these were treated. It also includes the available evidence logged by Iranian patients abroad and at home, as well as contemporary Persian texts that comment on public health and its practice in Iran. Floor shuns the analysis of classic Islamic medical textbooks, explaining that their medical advice was hardly ever administered and that the authors often had ideological (religious) agendas in writing these treatises. Instead, Floor investigates the commonly accepted theories of diseases, disorders, and their cures, including Islamic Galenic medicine and pre-Islamic theurgic folk medicine based on traditional herb lore and trial-and-error. The book concludes with the impact of Western medicine on the traditional medical institutions and public health in Qajar Iran. This exhaustive inquiry will enthrall scholars of Iran and medicine alike.

Although in the last few years the study of painting in 19th century Iran has made considerable progress it still remains somewhat tradition bound. It would seem that art historians find it difficult to go beyond oil paintings, lacquer, and enamel. In 1998, Robinson, the doyen of Qajar art history, wrote: "Qajar painting found its most prestigious outlets in oil painting, lacquer, and enamel." In this study it is shown that paintings were probably the most important form of expression for painters for many centuries and as prestigious as the other forms of painting. Mural paintings were very popular and were to be found on various types of buildings ranging from the royal palaces, private homes, bath-houses to a religious shrine. Painting was a craft and a business that was actively pursued by artisans in most major towns in response to a general demand for-figurative art. As to the themes depicted these remained basically limited to (i) dynastic and epic (Qajar 'family portraits'; battles, hunts; Shahnameh scenes), (ii) sensual (flora, fauna, erotic), and (iii) religious (prophets, lmams, 'olama) subjects. These subjects occurred in any type of building irrespective of its function. The wide use of figurative representation in religious buildings and practice is of great interest. People almost invariably assume that Moslems until recent times did not tolerate paintings and the like of humans and animals adorning public and private buildings and publications. This study shows otherwise. There is even evidence of the use of paintings as religious icons, which is a totally neglected subject. Rock reliefs and other forms of sculptured works in and on buildings and its accessories such as doors show a similar development as mural paintings. Although information is even less copious than for wall paintings, it is clear that the depiction of living beings in the forms of sculptures was very widespread and pre-dates the Qajar period. The nature and form of murals were influenced by the increased contacts between Persia/Iran and the outside world, in particular Europe and India. This holds in particular for the use of prints and the occurrence of European scenes in frescos and other forms of paintings. Willem Floor has written extensively on many aspects of social, economic, and art history of Iran.

How deadly cholera pandemics transformed modern Iran. Pandemic cholera reached Iran for the first of many times in 1821, assisted by Britain's territorial expansion and growing commercial pursuits. The revival of Iran's trade arteries after six decades of intermittent civil war, fractured rule, and isolation allowed the epidemic to spread inland and assume national proportions. In A Modern Contagion, Amir A. Afkhami argues that the disease had a profound influence on the development of modern Iran, steering the country's social, economic, and political currents. Drawing on archival documents from Iranian, European, and American sources, Afkhami provides a comprehensive overview of pandemic cholera in Iran from the early nineteenth century to the First World War. Linking the intensity of Iran's cholera outbreaks to the country's particular sociobiological vulnerabilities, he demonstrates that local, national, and international forces in Iran helped structure the region's susceptibility to the epidemics. He also explains how Iran's cholera outbreaks drove the adoption of new paradigms in medicine, helped transform Iranian views of government, and caused enduring institutional changes during a critical period in the country's modern development. Cholera played an important role in Iran's globalization and diplomacy, influencing everything from military engagements and boundary negotiations to Russia and Britain's imperial rivalry in the Middle East. Remedying an important deficit in the historiography of medicine, public health, and the Middle East, A Modern Contagion increases our understanding of ongoing sociopolitical challenges in Iran and the rest of the Islamic world.

This volume provides surprising new insights into the interrelation of medical practice, public health and politics in 19th century Iran, esp. the assimilation of Western medicine into indigenous systems.

Merchants and bankers managed much of nineteenth-century Iran's economy and finances. The ulama-clerical leaders-who considered themselves responsible for the spiritual welfare of their flock also played an important economic role, in particular, through management of religious endowments. Numerically, however, the most important group was that of the traders and craftsmen, who were organized into guilds and who formed thirty to fifty percent of the urban population. Finally, there were the unskilled, mostly seasonal, laborers. Guilds, Merchants and Ulama analyzes the major functions and characteristics of these groups, and discusses how they each coped with the pressures of the world market to which Iran was increasingly exposed and which resulted in the disappearance of jobs reducing Iran's economic and political independence. After 1870, Iran's economic situation was aggravated by an influx of peasants into the main cities significantly increasing the size of permanent unskilled labor in these cities. Guilds only provided some measure of social and economic benefits and protection to its members but could not prevent major downsizing, which is detailed in a contemporary report included here in translation. Meanwhile, both the merchants and the ulama demanded government action to better protect the country's economy and its independence. To make a bigger fist, the ulama, merchants and reformists mobilized the guilds to support their political ends. As such, the guilds provided the force that powered the political events, which resulted in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in 1906. The ulama's interference in economic life only made matters worse. They had no grasp of economics, beyond stating that people should not be greedy. And the guilds, despite their visible role during the 1905-06 events, found themselves used, and discarded when they were no longer needed. This created the parameters for major structural change to finally take place after 1925. In Guilds, Merchants, and Ulama Willem Floor provides a detailed analysis of primary source references essential for a better understanding of the socio-economic conditions that led to Iran's push toward modernization in the first quarter of the twentieth century.

The monetary history of a country provides important insights into its economic development, as well as its political and social history. This book is the first detailed study of Iran's monetary history from the advent of the Safavid dynasty in 1501 to the end of Qajar rule in 1925. Using an array of previously unpublished sources in ten languages, the authors consider the specific monetary conditions in Iran's modern history, covering the use of ready money and its circulation, the changing conditions of the country's mints and the role of the state in managing money. Throughout the book, the authors also consider the larger regional and global economic context within which the Iranian economy operated. As the first study of Iran's monetary history, this book will be essential reading for researchers of Iranian and economic history.