Discover how Persia's fight for constitutional government collided with foreign power and finance during its early 20th‑century upheaval.
The book presents a tightly focused history of Persia’s reform era, tracing the clash between the constitutional movement and a government shaped by international finance, diplomacy, and competing empires. It situates a pivotal period in which financial policies, political struggle, and foreign influence intertwined to shape the country’s course.
What you’ll experience and learn:
- A clear picture of the 1906 constitutional era and its lasting impact on Persian politics.
- How external powers influenced Persian finances, loans, and tax policy.
- Profiles of ministers, diplomats, and officials who navigated a web of alliances and rivalries.
- Context for key reforms and events, including fiscal changes and power struggles that followed.
Ideal for readers of modern Middle East history and political economy.
"A new edition of the 1912 work by the American appointed in 1911 by the newly (and briefly) constitutional government of Persia to help organize its finances. "Ejected" only a year later as a result of "British and Russian diplomatic intrigue," Shuster wrote a lively firsthand account of his experiences that reveals much about how Great Power interference shaped Iran's history, with considerable reference to recent and current events." -- Middle East Journal
"Outside Iran, hardly anyone recalls W. Morgan Shuster, or the 1907 Anglo-Russian agreement. Yet what happened then helps explain how Russia was shut out of the Persian Gulf and why Iranians behave as they do today. Before that pact, Iranians looked upon Russia as a traditional enemy and Britain as a well-meaning friend. Britain had aimed to keep all rivals, especially Russia, away from approaches to India, notably the Persian Gulf. The gulf was virtually a British lake, charted, mapped and cleared of pirated by the British Navy... Hardly had he arrived when Shuster became embroiled in a dispute with Russia over customs policy. He asked for, and was given, plenary powers, by Iran's national assembly. Czarist armies were soon marching on Tehran, demanding Shuster's removal. An embarrassed Britain, citing the 1907 pact, came to Russia's support. Shuster departed but then wrote a forceful book, The Strangling of Persia." -- The New York Times
The Great Game continues. -- The New York Times