Examines the politics and economics of Iran before the twentieth century

Iran before 1906 is a fascinating example of a pre-capitalist society. Was Iran, in the centuries before the constitutional revolution of 1906, an essentially feudal society? Or was it a despotic Asiatic one? In this illuminating portrait of politics and society in Qajar Iran, Abbas Vali examines these, and other, questions to develop new concepts for the analysis of state and social relations in pre-capitalist Iran. The first theoretical history of Qajar Iran, the volume contains chapters on Marxism and the historiography of pre-capitalist Iran; economic concepts of feudal rent; political authority, sovereignty, and property ownership in medieval political discourse; and the organization of agrarian production in pre-capitalist Iran.

How can Iranian society prior to the constitutional revolution of 1906 be characterized? In this book, the first theoretical history of its kind, Vali takes as his starting point the long-standing debate among historians and social scientists over this central issue. He critically assesses the work of those scholars who have argued that pre-twentieth century Iranian institutions were essentially feudal, and those who have proposed an alternative conceptualization of Iran as an Asiatic society. Since this controversy takes place within the framework of a comparative study of Iranian and West European histories, the book also examines the works of high social theory from which it derives—those of Marx, Weber, Wittfogel, Anderson, Balibar, Hindess and Hirst, Mann, and others. Finally, Vali uses his critiques to develop new concepts for the analysis of state and social relations in pre-capitalist Iran.