A Dynastic History of Iran

"This book examines the political histories of Iran's last two monarchical dynasties, the Qajars and the Pahlavis. In its long dynastic history, several monarchs and the larger dynasties they represented assumed themselves to be the apogees of imperial rule. But following the decline and eventual collapse of Safavid rule in the 1720s, except for brief interludes such as the reigns of Nader Shah Afshar from 1737 to 1747 and Karim Khan Zand from 1751 to 1779, the country was racked by centrifugal forces, warring tribes, and dynastic pretenders. It was around the time of the second Qajar monarch, Fath Ali Shah, who ascended to the throne in 1797, when dynastic rule similar to what was the norm during the Safavids once again appeared in Iran. The book traces the rise and fall of the Qajars and their successor dynasty, the Pahlavis. The following questions inform the research here. How and why did each of the dynasties rise to power? What domestic and international forces impacted them? What were the characteristics and consequences of that rule? How and why were the two dynasties effective in fulfilling their goals? Even if the Pahlavi narrative that their dynasty represented 2,500 years of monarchical rule in Iran is to be rightly doubted, the monarchy's collapse is of great consequence for the longue durâee of Iranian history. What occurred in Iran in 1978-79 was much more than a political revolution; it was a rupture of historic proportions, a critical juncture after which Iranian history will never have an institution that for centuries had been its centerpiece, that of the monarchy. With the benefit of hindsight, the Qajars and the Pahlavis appear to have represented the last gasps of monarchy in Iran. My hope is for this book to at least partially capture the nuances and subtle complexities of how these dynasties rose, operated, and fell"--