The East India Company in Persia: Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Eighteenth Century

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In 1747, the city of Kerman in Persia burned amidst chaos, destruction and death perpetrated by the citys own overlord, Nader Shah. After the violent overthrow of the Safavid dynasty in 1722 and subsequent foreign invasions from all sides, Persia had been in constant turmoil. One well-appointed house that belonged to the East India Company had been saved from destruction by the ingenuity of a Company servant, Danvers Graves, and his knowledge of the Companys privileges in Persia. This book explores the lived experience of the Company and its trade in Persia and how it interacted with power structures and the local environment in a time of great upheaval in Persian history. Using East India Company records and other sources, it charts the role of the Navy and commercial fleet in the Gulf, trade agreements, and the experience of Company staff, British and non-British living in and navigating conditions in 18th-century Persia. By examining the social, commercial and diplomatic history of this relationship, this book creates a new paradigm for the study of Early Modern interactions in the Indian Ocean.

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The East India Company in Persia provides a much needed intervention into an under-explored topic and will act as a basis for further exploration into the history of the British-Persian relationship. * The New Arab *

Author Bio

Peter Good completed his PhD in History at the University of Essex, UK, in 2018. Since then he has undertaken teaching and research at the University of Kent and the University of Manchester on projects funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the John Rylands Research Institute.