The Shah's Great Tour

At the height of the imperial age, the shahs of Persia regularly embarked on grand royal journeys, roaming the courtly world from the Ottoman empire to the shores of Scotland. Causing great excitement wherever they appeared, the monarchs and their entourages were received with great pomp in the capitals of Europe—St. Petersburg, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, The Hague, Rome, Constantinople, and beyond. Offering a groundbreaking reinterpretation of relations between non-European and European rulers in the age of empire, the book shows that royal visits provided the guests a way of integrating themselves and their countries into an international order dominated by Europe's great powers. The shahs' participation in the rituals of state visits—such as gift-giving, the exchange of orders, and military spectacle—gave expression to their dynastic legitimacy and their country's sovereignty. Acclaimed historian David Motadel draws a sweeping panorama of fin-de-siècle Europe, as seen from the outside, tracing the shahs' encounters with monarchs and ministers, magnates and merchants, priests and prostitutes, revolutionaries and assassins. Their royal tours also inspired the writings of some of the era's greatest authors, from Anton Chekhov to Mark Twain. The fruit of decades of research, The Shah's Great Tour is based on a wealth of documents unearthed in more than fifty archives across fifteen countries, including the Persian travelogues of the shahs. A monumental feat of scholarship, it sheds light on the glittering, globalized world of monarchs in the age of empire.