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The Concept of Dependent Development as a Key to the Political Economy of Qajar Iran (1800–1925)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

John Foran
John Foran*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Extract

A central controversy in the economic history of Iran revolves around the nature of the changes that occurred in the nineteenth century: was there an economic “decline” or, on the other hand, can one see the “beginnings of modernization” in the long reign of the Qajar dynasty from 1800 to 1925? Did living standards rise or fall? Did the level and type of consumption improve or deteriorate for the majority of the population? And were the dominant trends positive or negative within the subsectors of peasant agriculture, tribal pastoralism and urban production and trade? The Qajar period has found a number of good historians but has been plagued by problems of conceptualization and interpretation. Two very different judgments have arisen: on one side, Nowshirvani, Gilbar and Nashat have advanced analyses highlighting progress, in terms of “commercialization of agriculture,” “modernization of institutions,” “rise in per capita incomes,” and so forth. On the other, Issawi, Bharier and Keddie have painted more sober portraits emphasizing “relative economic stagnation and very slow development,” especially compared with Egypt and the Ottoman empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 2-3 , 1989 , pp. 5 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1989

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References

1 See Nowshirvani, V. F., “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture in Iran,” pp. 547-591 in Udovitch, A. L., editor, The Islamic Middle East, 700-1900. Studies in Economic and Social History (Princeton: The Darwin Press, Inc., 1981)Google Scholar; Nashat, Guity, “From Bazaar to Market: Foreign Trade and Economic Development in Nineteenth-Century Iran,” pp. 53–85 in Iranian Studies, volume XIV, numbers 1-2 (Winter-Spring 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the several articles by Gad G. Gilbar that will be cited below.

2 See Issawi, Charles, editor, The Economic History of Iran: 1800-1914 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 13–19Google Scholar; Nikki R. Keddie's various works, including Roots of Revolution (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; and Bharier, Julian, Economic Development in Iran 1900-1970 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 19–20Google Scholar.

3 A third group of scholars, including Seyf, Ashraf, Anna Enayat and Amanat, have come closer, but never fully or explicitly enough, to the perspective employed in this essay. See their works cited below. Three dissertations on topics discussed in this article are Hooshang Amirahmadi, “Transition from Feudalism to Capitalist Manufacturing and the Origin of Dependency Relations in Iran,” Cornell University (1982); Reza Kefayati, “Socio-Economic Formation of Iran: The Disintegration of the Traditional System and the Inception of Modern Capitalism in the 19th Century,” Boston University (1982); and Ahmad Seyf, “Some Aspects of Economic Development in Iran, 1800-1906,” University of Reading (1982).

4 There is a vast literature on each of these theories by now. Good overviews can be found in Roxborough, Ian, Theories of Under development (London: Macmillan, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Taylor, John G., From Modernization to Modes of Production. A Critique of the Sociologies of Development and Underdevelopment (London: Macmillan, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chilcote, Ronald H., “Dependency: A Critical Synthesis of the Literature,” pp. 4–29 in Latin American Perspectives, volume 1 (1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Foster-Carter, Aidan, “The Modes of Production Controversy,” pp. 47–77 in New Left Review, number 107 (January-February 1978)Google Scholar.

5 All three approaches are valuable and can be synthesized in a complementary manner, a task which I have undertaken in “A Historical-Sociological Framework for the Study of Long-Term Social Transformations in the Third World, with “Theses on Iran',” a paper presented at the meetings of the International Sociological Association, New Delhi, India (August 1986). I also discuss and apply these theories in my dissertation, “Social Structure and Social Change in Iran from 1500 to 1979,” Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley (1988).

6 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique and Faletto, Enzo, Dependency and Development in Latin America, translated by Urquidi, Marjory Mattingly (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979), xxCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Ibid., xxiv.

8 Evans, Peter, Dependent Development. The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 32–33Google Scholar.

9 Cardoso and Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America, xx.

10 Quoted in Leonard Michael Helfgott, “The Rise of the Qājār Dynasty,” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, University of Maryland (1973), 238.

11 Quoted in Ann Lambton, “Persian Society under the Qājārs,” pp. 123-139 in Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, volume XLVIII, part II (April 1961), 124, citing Hunt, G. H., Outram and Havelock's Persian Campaign (London, 1858), 127Google Scholar.

12 See Issawi, The Economic History of Iran (hereafter EHI), 71–72, 263-64Google Scholar, and Nikki Keddie, “The Impact of the West on Iranian Social History,” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley (1955), 60, citing the Soviet scholar M. S. Ivanov.

13 Curzon, George N., Persia and the Persian Question, 2 volumes (London: Longman, Green and Co., 1892), I, 480.Google Scholar

14 Chris Paine, “Iranian Nationalism and the Great Powers: 1872-1954,” pp. 3-28 in MERIP (Middle East Research and Information Project) Reports, number 37 (1975), 9. See also Ferrier, R. W., The History of the British Petroleum Company, volume 1, The Developing Years 1901-1932 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

15 For trade and investment data, see the several original sources presented in Issawi, EHI, 23, 104, 107, 137, 148, 359; Seyf, Ahmad, “Silk Production and Trade in Iran in the Nineteenth Century,” pp. 51–71 in Iranian Studies, volume XVI, numbers 1-2 (Winter-Spring 1983), 53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ashraf, Ahmad, Mavāne'-e Tārīkhī-ye Rushd-e Sarmāyehdārī dar Irān: Daureh-ye Qājāriyyeh [Historical Obstacles to the Development of Capitalism in Iran in the Qajar Era] (Tehran: Payam Press, 1359/1980), 55Google Scholar; Ashraf, Ahmad and Hekmat, H., “Merchants and Artisans in the Developmental Processes of Nineteenth-Century Iran,” pp. 725-750 in Udovitch, A. L., editor, The Islamic Middle East, 700-1900: Studies in Economic and Social History (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1981), 734Google Scholar; Ashraf, Ahmad, “Obstacles to the Development of a Bourgeoisie in Iran,” pp. 308-324 in Cook, M. A., editor, Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: from the rise of Islam to the present day (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 325Google Scholar; and Issawi, Charles, “Iranian Trade, 1800-1914,” pp. 229-241 in Iranian Studies, volume XVI, numbers 3-4 (Summer-Autumn 1983), 235-36, 238Google Scholar.

16 See “Treaty of Peace (Gulistan): Russia and Persia,” September 30/Octobcr 12, 1813, pp. 84-86 in Hurewitz, J. C., editor, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, volume 1, A Documentary Record: 1535-1914 (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1956)Google Scholar, and “Treaties of Peace and Commerce (Turkmanchay): Persia and Russia,” February 10/22, 1828, pp. 96-102 in ibid.

17 On this trade, see Issawi, EIII, 145-46, 264; Entner, Marvin L., Russo-Persian Commercial Relations, 1828-1914 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1965), 8–9Google Scholar; and Lambton, Ann, “Persian Trade under the Early Qājārs,” pp. 215-244 in Richards, D. S., editor, Islam and the Trade of Asia. A Colloquium. Papers in Islamic History: II (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, and Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970), 222-23, 235, 240-41Google Scholar.

18 “Russo-Persian Railway Agreement,” October 28/November 10, 1890, p. 207 in Hurewitz, Diplomacy, I; Entner, Russo-Persian Commercial Relations, 41-44, 75-76; Issawi, EIII, 361.

19 See Issawi's summary of Entner's data in EIII, 142.

20 Entner, Russo-Persian Commercial Relations, 77.

21 Quoted in ibid., 41-42.

22 Wilber, Donald N., Riza Shah Pahlavi. The Resurrection and Reconstruction of Iran (Hicksville, New York: Exposition Press, 1975), 7Google Scholar.

23 “Anglo-Russian Convention on Persia, Afghanistan and Tibet,” August 18/31, 1907, ratifications exchanged at St. Petersburg, September 10/23, 1907, pp. 265-267 in Hurewitz, Diplomacy, I. Thus was realized the fear expressed by Muhammad Shah's prime minister Qa'em Maqam as long ago as 1835 that ”…if both Russian and English consuls were placed in any one part of Persia, that those functionaries would quickly absorb all the power and authority of the Persian government into their hands, and that that portion of his country would be lost to his government, and in this way would commence a system of seizing piecemeal on his weak, and divided and poor country, which would end in its being entirely partitioned between two powerful lions that had fastened upon its members“: quoted in Lambton, “Persian Trade under the Early Qājārs,” 232.

24 Malcolm, The Melville Papers, in Issawi, EHI, 262-67, calculations mine.

25 Issawi, “Iranian Trade, 1800-1914,” 231; Issawi, EIII, 132; Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 564, on the increase in “real” trade.

26 Issawi, EIII, 70.

27 Ross is quoted by Seyf, Ahmad, “Commercialization of Agriculture: Production and Trade of Opium in Persia, 1850-1906,” pp. 233-250 in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 16, number 2 (May 1984), 236CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 McDaniel, Robert A., “Economic Change and Economic Resiliency in 19th Century Persia,” pp. 36-49 in Iranian Studies, volume IV, number 1 (Winter 1971), 44–45Google Scholar; Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 550; Issawi, EIII, 129.

29 Kia, A.C., Essai sur l'histoire industrielle de l'Iran (Paris, 1939), 87–88Google Scholar, cited by Keddie, Nikki, Historical Obstacles to Agrarian Change in Iran (Claremont, California: Claremont Asian Studies, September 1960), 6Google Scholar.

30 Issawi, EIII, 18, 70; McDaniel, “Economic Change and Economic Resiliency,” 39.

31 For wheat, McDaniel, “Economic Change and Economic Resiliency,” 37; for opium, Seyf, “Commercialization of Agriculture,” 247 table 8; for silk, Gilbar, Gad G., “Persian Agriculture in the Late Qājār Period, 1860-1906: Some Economic and Social Aspects,” pp. 312-365 in Asian and African Studies, volume 12, number 3 (1978), 349Google Scholar.

32 Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 555 table III.

33 Wallerstein, Immanuel is the author of The Modern World-System I. Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974)Google Scholar, The Modern World-System II. Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600-1750 (New York: Academic Press, 1980)Google Scholar, and The Modern World-System III. The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730-1840s (New York: Academic Press, 1989)Google Scholar. He divides the world-economy since about 1500 into a core of advanced, increasingly industrial nations, an underdeveloped periphery, and a set of middle-rank states, the semiperiphery. The external arena referred to those unincorporated areas that might trade with the core, but in luxury, rather than essential goods. Seventeenth-century Iran is a good example.

34 Wallerstein, The Modern World-System I, 301-302.

35 Bausani, The Persians, 172. See also Fred Halliday, Iran. Dictatorship and Development (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1979), 33, and Anna Enayat, “The Problem of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century Iran,” pp. 48-72 in RIPEH (Review of Iranian Political Economy and History), volume II, number 1 (December 1977), 56-57.

36 Population data can be found in Issawi, EIII, 20 note 2, 21-22, 33; Charles Issawi, “Population and Resources in the Ottoman Empire and Iran,” pp. 152-164 in Naff, Thomas and Owen, Roger, editors, Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977), 162Google Scholar, citing the work of Robert Hill; Katouzian, Homa, The Political Economy of Modern Iran. Despotism and Pseudo-Modernism, 1926-1979 (New York and London: New York University Press, 1981), 30Google Scholar; and Gilbar, Gad G., “Demographic developments in late Qajar Persia, 1870-1906,” pp. 125-156 in Asian and African Studies, volume 11, number 2 (Autumn 1976)Google Scholar.

37 A few of the numerous estimates I have consulted include Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 563; Helfgott, “The Rise of the Qājār Dynasty,” 85-86; Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 180-81; Thomson, Medvedev and Sobotsinskii in Issawi, EIII, 28, 33; and Houtum-Schindler, Zolotarcf and Curzon in Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, II, 493-94.

38 For a comprehensive list of the crops grown in each province around 1900, see Rabino, “An Economist's Notes on Persia,” 274-277.

39 See Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 315; Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 186; Abbas Amanat, “Introduction” to Cities & Trade: Consul Abbott on the Economy and Society of Persia 1847-1866, Oxford Oriental Monographs, number 5 (London: Ithaca Press, 1983), xviii; McDaniel, “Economic Change and Economic Resiliency,” 37, 39, 46-47 note 2; and Issawi, EHI, 211.

40 On silk, see Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 187; Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 346-49; Amanat, “Introduction” to Cities & Trade, xvii; and Seyf, “Silk Production and Trade,” 60-64, calculations mine.

41 Sec Seyf, “Commercialization of Agriculture,” 242-45, 246 table 7, 247 table 8; Gilbar's rather different set of data in “Persian Agriculture,” 325, 329-30, 331-33; Nashat, “From Bazaar to Market,” 60; and Olson, Roger T., “Persian Gulf Trade and the Agricultural Economy of Southern Iran in the Nineteenth Century,” pp. 173-189 in Bonine, Michael E. and Keddie, Nikki R., editors. Modern Iran. The Dialectics of Continuity and Change (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981), 187-88.Google Scholar Thanks also to the anonymous reviewer for pointing out the new peak at the end of the Qajar period. By 1936 production declined by twothirds again: Bharier, Economic Development in Iran, 132.

42 Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 355. On cotton see Issawi, “Iranian Trade, 1800-1914,” 233-34; Issawi, EHI, 146, 209, 245, 246; Seyf, “Commercialization of Agriculture,” 237; Nowshirvani, ‘The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 573; and McDaniel, “Economic Change and Economic Resiliency,” 42-43, who discusses the mechanisms by which peasants benefited less.

43 Issawi, EIII, 76; Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 320-23; Entner, Russo-Persian Commercial Relations, 75.

44 McDaniel, Robert, The Shuster Mission and the Persian Constitutional Revolution (Minneapolis: Biblioteca Islamica, 1974), 37Google Scholar; Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 355-56; Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 188, for Blau's 1857 figures.

45 Habl al-Matin, May 18, 1906, in Issawi, EIII, 68; Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 357; Issawi, EIII, 250.

46 This is my own rough estimate based on Gilbar's observation that Gilan's 216,000 pounds sterling in taxes represented 11 percent of the total state revenue. Since the land tax was roughly ten percent of the crops’ market value, total agricultural GDP was (very) roughly 216,000 X 9 X 10 = 19,440,000 pounds sterling: Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 350. Katouzian estimates agricultural output at 25 million tumans in 1869, or about 11 million pounds sterling: The Political Economy of Modern Iran, 44 table 3.9.

47 Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 360.

48 Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 579.

49 Ibid.; Issawi, EHI, 17.

50 Seyf, “Commercialization of Agriculture,” 234, 248.

51 Ibid., 238-40.

52 Eastwick is cited by Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 189.

53 Lambton, Ann K. S., Landlord and Peasant in Persia. A Study of Land Tenure and Land Revenue Administration (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), 152Google Scholar.

54 Pavlovitch, Michel, “La situation agraire en Perse à la veille de la révolution,” pp. 616-625 in Revue du Monde Musulman, volume XII, number 12 (December 1910), 618Google Scholar. On this trend, see also Mochaver, F., L'évolution des finances iranniennes (Paris, 1938), 149Google Scholar, as cited by Minorsky, Vladimir, editor and translator, Tadhkirat al-mulūk. A Manual of Safavid Administration (circa 1137/1725) (London: Luzac, 1943), 196 note 1Google Scholar; Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 139, 152; Issawi, EHI, 210; and Minorsky, Vladimir, “Tiyūl,” pp. 799-801 in The Encyclopedia of Islam (London: Luzac, 1934), 801Google Scholar.

55 Lambton, Ann K. S., “The Case of Ḥājjī Nūr al-Din, 1823-47: A Study in Land Tenure,” pp. 54-72 in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, volume XXX, part 1 (1967), 71–72Google Scholar; Amanat, “Introduction” to Cities & Trade, xx; Willem Floor, “The Merchants (tujjār) in Qājār Iran,” pp. 101-135 in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, volume 126, number 1 (1976), 113-14; Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, “Social Hierarchy in Provincial Iran: The Case of Qajar Maragheh,” pp. 129-163 in Iranian Studies, volume X, number 3 (Summer 1977), 149; Pavlovitch, “La situation agraire,” 620.

56 Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 140.

57 I have theorized this mode of production to distinguish it from feudalism, which did not exist in pre-capitalist Iran, in my view: sec Foran, John, “The Modes of Production Approach to Seventeenth-Century Iran,” pp. 345-363 in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 20, number 3 (August 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 On the prevalence of sharecropping sec Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 145, 166, 173; Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 189; and Bausani, The Persians, 174-75. On the actual shares given, see Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 189; Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 148-49, 172, 173; Good, “Social Hierarchy in Provincial Iran,” 156; Pavlovitch, “La situation agraire,” 620; Seyf, “Silk Production and Trade,” 54-55; and Issawi, EIII, 242.

59 See Olson, “Persian Gulf Trade,” 185, and the sources in Issawi, EIII, 236.

60 Keddic, Nikki, “Iran, 1797-1941,” pp. 137-157 in her Iran: Religion, Politics and Society. Collected Essays (London: Frank Cass, 1980), 148-49Google Scholar, also judges that those renting land for a fixed amount were a small group, found in the more prosperous northwest. Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 579, reaches the same conclusion as I on the strict limits of “capitalist” agriculture.

61 Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 175.

62 Ibid., 172.

63 Hooglund, Eric J., “Rural Socioeconomic Organization in Transition: The Case of Iran's Bonehs,” pp. 191-207 in Bonine, Michael E. and Keddie, Nikki R., editors, Modern Iran. The Dialectic of Continuity and Change (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981), 195-96, 198–201Google Scholar.

64 On stratification see Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 157 (the text should read “10-20” and not “10-50,” as corrected by personal communication with Ann Lambton, February 16, 1987), and Keddie, “Iran, 1797-1941,” 148-49. On landless laborers, see Good, “Social Hierarchy in Provincial Iran,” 157; Bausani, The Persians 174-75; Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 576; Issawi, EHI, 40-41; and Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 339.

65 On rural women see Pavlovitch, “La situation agraire,” 621; Keddie, “The Impact of the West,” ca. p. 59; Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 575; and Seyf, “Silk Production and Trade,” 57.

66 Malcolm, History of Persia (1829 edition), II, 353, cited by Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 137.

67 Fraser, James B., Historical and Descriptive Account of Persia, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1833), 204Google Scholar, cited by Keddie, Historical Obstacles, 4. Cf. the classic quote by Chardin, Jean, Voyages du Chevalier Chardin, en Perse, et autres lieux de I'orienl, 12 volumes (Paris: Le Normant, 1811), V, 391-92Google Scholar.

68 Rawlinson, “Notes on a Journey from Tabrīz,” 14, cited by Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 190.

69 Eastwick, Edward B., Journal of a Diplomat's Three Years’ Residence in Persia (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1864), 3 volumes: II, 86Google Scholar, cited by Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 191.

70 Abbott's report on Gilan in 1865 is cited by Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 192.

71 Jenner is cited by Gilbar, “Demographic developments,” 140.

72 Mas'ud Mirza Zill al-Sultan, Tārīkk-e Sargozasht-e Mas'ūdī [History of Mas'ud's Narrative] (Tehran, 1325 Q./1907), 210-11, cited by Nashat, Guity, The Origins of Modern Reform in Iran, 1870-80 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 39–40Google Scholar.

73 The British consul is cited by Issawi, EHI, 40.

74 Lascelles's report of January 13, 1893 is cited by Hakimian, Hassan, “Wage Labor and Migration: Persian Workers in Southern Russia, 1880-1914,” pp. 443-462 in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 17, number 4 (November 1985), 453CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Sir Gordon, Thomas E., Persia Revisited (London, 1896), 39–40Google Scholar, cited by Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 365.

76 MacLean, “Report on the Conditions and Prospects,” in Issawi, EIII, 142.

77 Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 192-95.

78 Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 363. For his more sober assessment of the period from 1800 to 1850, see “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 188, 195.

79 Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 576-77, though he himself cites an 1893 British report from Sistan: “The people are so wretchedly poor that there is no demand for these things. They make their own clothes and don't drink tea.“

80 Nikki Keddie, “Introduction” to her Iran: Religion, Politics and Society, 5.

81 Olson, “Persian Gulf Trade,” 185, 187-88, 418 note 36.

82 Seyf, “Commercialization of Agriculture,” 238.

83 Nasser Pakdaman, “Preface,” pp. 125-135 in Iranian Studies, volume 16, numbers 3-4 (Summer-Autumn 1983), 126; Z. Z. Abdullaev, Promyshlennost…, in Issawi, EIII, 49; Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 576.

84 Nikki Keddie, “The Economic History of Iran, 1800-1914, and Its Political Impact,” pp. 119-136 in her Iran: Religion, Politics and Society, 25; Keddie, Historical Obstacles, 2, 4.

85 Issawi, EIII, 22. Cf. Lambton on the peasantry in mid-century: “There was no security of life or property, and peasants in particular were subjected to grinding tyranny“: “Persia: The Breakdown of Society,” pp. 403-467 in Holt, P. M.et al., editors, The Cambridge History of Islam, volume 1, The Central Islamic Lands (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 454Google Scholar.

86 The total population figures can be derived from the general discussion of population, above. Data on specific cities is found in Foran, “Social Structure and Social Change in Iran,” Chapter Four: “Crossing the Threshold of Dependence: The Iranian Social Formation from 1800 to 1914,” 353 table 4.13.

87 These groups are treated in Chapter Four of my dissertation. From the theoretical standpoint of the present essay, however, their situation is of less centrality than that of the more numerous classes on which we shall concentrate.

88 Gilbar, Gad G., “The Big Merchants (tujjār) and the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906,” pp. 275-303 in Asian and African Studies, volume 11, number 3 (1977), 288Google Scholar.

89 Atrpet, Mamed Ali Shah (Alexandropol, 1909), 141, cited by Z. Z. Abdullaev, Promyshlennost …, in Issawi, EIII, 43. See also ibid., 44, 48, and Ashraf, Mavāne'-e Tārīkhī, 74-75.

90 Issawi, EIII, 44-45, 100; Ashraf and Hckmat, “Merchants and Artisans,” 735-37; Floor, “The Merchants (tujjār),” 128.

91 On small and medium merchants see Ashraf, Mavāne'-e Tārīkhī, 24; Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, I, 167-68; and Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 334.

92 Floor, “The Merchants (tujjār),” 133.

93 Ibid., 120, 122, 123.

94 Nashat, “From Bazaar to Market,” 70; Enayat, “The Problem of Imperialism,” 67; Ivanov, M. S., Tārīkh-e Novīn-e Irān [Contemporary History of Iran], translated from the Russian to Persian by Hushang Tizabi and Hasan Qa'im Panch (Stockholm: Tudch Publishing Centre, 1356/1977), 13Google Scholar.

95 Floor, Willem, Industrialization in Iran 1900-1941, Occasional Paper Series, number 23 (University of Durham, England: Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 1984), 5Google Scholar, 5 table 3, 7; Willem Floor, “The Guilds in Iran-an Overview from the Earliest Beginnings till 1972,” pp. 99-116 in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, volume 125, number 1 (1975), 109; Nashat, “From Bazaar to Market,” 69; Issawi, EHI, 37, 261.

96 Issawi, EHI, 17, 259.

97 Abbott's “Report on the Commerce of the South of Persia” is quoted by Amanat, “Introduction” to Cities & Trade, xvi.

98 Pakdaman, “Preface,” 130; Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 198. Ashraf notes that “Flandin, who visited Kāshān in 1840, reports that the impact of British materials had destroyed the large factories of Kāshān“: “Historical Obstacles,” 325.

99 Mirza Husayn, Joghrāfiyā-ye Isfāhān [Geography of Isfahan] (Tehran, 1342/1963), in Issawi, EHI, 279-81.

100 On Tabriz, see Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 198. On Yazd, ibid., and Lambton, “Persian Trade under the Early Qājārs,” 219 note 2. On Kirman and Mashhad, Pakdaman, “Preface,” 130, and Ashraf, “Historical Obstacles,” 325, citing Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, II, 245.

101 Blau is cited by Steensgaard, Niels and Inalcik, Halil, “Ḥarīr,” pp. 209-221 in The Encyclopedia of Islam, new edition, volume 3 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, and London: Luzac & Co., 1979), 210Google Scholar. On textile imports, see Lambton, “Persian Trade under the Early Qājārs,” 238; Bausani, The Persians, 169; and Issawi, “Iranian Trade, 1800-1914,” 233.

102 Sobotsinskii, Persiya, 228-29, is cited by Issawi, EHI, 259 note 6.

103 Floor, Industrialization in Iran, 8 table 4.

104 Ibid., 5 table 3, and Issawi, EIII, 261, both citing Abdullaev.

105 The modalities of this evolution can be traced in Robert Dillon, “Carpet Capitalism and craft involution in Kirman, Iran: A study in economic anthropology,” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University (1976), 468-75; Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 590 note 87; sources in Issawi, EHI, 297-300, 302-303; McDaniel, “Economic Change and Economic Resiliency,” 41; Ashraf, Mavāne'-e Tārīkhī, 55; and Floor, Industrialization in Iran, 7.

106 Issawi, EHI, 302; Issawi, “Iranian Trade, 1800-1914,” 234.

107 British missionaries’ reports of 1921 and 1924. cited by Willem Floor, Labour Unions, Law and Conditions in Iran (I900-1941), Occasional Paper Series, number 26 (University of Durham, England: Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 1985), 90-91. See also ibid., 11, 88-90, 101-102. Floor also cites a 1928 newspaper article in Shafaq-e Sorkh entitled “The Kirman carpet or the extermination of the young generation of that province.“

108 Quoted by Floor, “The Merchants (tujjār),” 131. On the mid-nineteenth century factories, see Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 199-200; Issawi, EHI, 261; and Feridun Adamiyat, Amir Kabir va Iran [Amir Kabir and Iran] (Tehran: Khwarazmi, 1348/1969), extracts of which are translated in Issawi, EHI, 292-97.

109 On these factories see Ashraf, Mavāne'-e Tārīkhī, 98 table 2, who draws on Abdullaev; Sayyid Muhammad ‘Ali Jamalzadeh, Ganj-e Shāyagān ya Awza'-ye Iqtiṣādī-ye Irān [Abundant Treasure, or, the Economic Situation of Iran] (Berlin: Kaveh, 1335 Q./1916), 93-96; Floor, Industrialization in Iran, 9, 9 table 5, 16; Ashraf and Hekmat, “Merchants and Artisans,” 737; Ashraf, “Historical Obstacles,” 326; Jamalzadeh, in Issawi, EHI, 309-10; and Ferrier, The History of the British Petroleum Company, 41.

110 On European-owned factories, sec Ashraf, Mavāne'-e Tārīkhī, 65-66, 99 table 3; Jamalzadeh, Ganj-e Shāyagān, 93-96; Floor, Industrialization in Iran, 9 table 5; and Issawi, EHI, 67.

111 Abdullacv, Promyshlennost…, in Issawi, EHI, 49.

112 Ibid., 50; Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 576.

113 Hakimian, “Wage Labor and Migration,” passim; Gilbar, “Demographic developments,” 152-53; Abdullaev, Promyshlennost…, in Issawi, EHI, 52.

114 Floor, Labour Unions, Law and Conditions, 82.

115 Floor, Labour Unions, Law and Conditions, 99-101, 104, 112; Issawi, EHI, 41, 42.

116 Floor, Labour Unions, Law and Conditions, 4-32.

117 Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, 36.

118 Bakhash, Shaul, Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy and Reform under the Qajars: 1858-1896 (London: Ithaca Press, 1978), 270-71Google Scholar.

119 Lambton, “The Case of Ḥājjī Nūr al-Dīn,” 55; Borgomale, Rabino di, Coins, Medals and Seals of the Shāhs of Irān 1550-1941 (Hertford, England: S. Austin and Sons, Ltd., 1945)Google Scholar, table IV between pages 18-19; Lambton, “Persian Trade under the Early Qājārs,” 238: Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 208; Rabino, “An Economist's Notes on Persia,” 273.

120 On the export of specie, see Lambton, “Persian Trade under the Early Qājārs,” 238; on the international price of silver, see Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 551-52, and Issawi, EHI, 339; on the trade deficit, see Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, 38; on the abuses at the mint, see Bakhash, Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy and Reform, 270-72.

121 Lambton, “Persian Trade under the Early Qājārs,” 238.

122 Gilbar, Gad G., “Trends in the Development of Prices in Late Qajar Iran, 1870-1906,” pp. 177-198 in Iranian Studies, volume XVI, numbers 3-4 (Summer-Autumn 1983)Google Scholar, passim.

123 Abdullaev, Promyshlennost…, in Issawi, EHl, 43.

124 Rabino, “An Economist's Notes on Persia,” 278. See also Bakhash, Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy and Reform, 271.

125 Issawi, EHI, 40-42.

126 Ibid., 40.

127 Cited in ibid., 41 note 10.

128 Gilbar, “Trends in the Development of Prices,” 187 table 4.

129 On Rasht and Tabriz, see Issawi, EHI, 41 note 10; MacLean, “Report on the Conditions and Prospects,” in Issawi, EHI, 142.

130 Seyf, “Commercialization of Agriculture,” 238.

131 Issawi, EHI, 42.

132 See Helfgott, “The Rise of the Qājār Dynasty,” 91, 101; Gilbar, “Demographic developments,” 145; and Thomson, “Report on Persia,” in Issawi, EHI, 28.

133 Bausani, The Persians, 173.

134 Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 140, 157.

135 Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 188.

136 Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 573, citing Mirza Husayn Khan's Joghrāfiyā-ye Isfāhān [Geography of Isfahan], edited by M. Sotoodeh (Tehran 1342/1963), 92.

137 Cited by Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 359.

138 Gilbar, “Persian Agriculture,” 360; Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the mid-19th Century,” 188; Olson, “Persian Gulf Trade,” 181, 417 note 25.

139 McDaniel, The Shuster Mission, 24.

140 Afshari, Muhammad Reza, “The Pīshivarān and Merchants in Precapitalist Iranian Society: An Essay on the Background and Causes of the Constitutional Revolution,” pp. 133-155 in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 15, number 2 (May 1983), 138CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

141 Lambton, “Persian Society under the Early Qājārs,” 139; Keddie, “Iran, 1797-1941,” 140-42, 150.

142 Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 162.

143 Modes of production analysis argues that most societies (or social formations) in transition from one economic organization to another simultaneously combine two or more modes of production. A mode of production may be defined as a labor process (the way human beings transform nature) and the relations of production (classes) defined by the subsequent allocation of the surplus produced. Taylor, From Modernization to Modes of Production, and Foster-Carter, “The Modes of Production Controversy,” provide good discussions of these concepts and the history of this perspective on development. For a fuller study of the pre-capitalist Iranian social formation, see Foran, “The Modes of Production Approach to Seventeenth-Century Iran.“

144 Fraser is cited by Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 145-46 note 7.

145 Lambton, “Persia: The Breakdown of Society,” 453-54; John H. Lorentz, “Iran's Great Reformer of the Nineteenth Century: An Analysis of Amīr Kabīr's Reforms,” pp. 85-103 in Iranian Studies, volume III, number 2 (Spring-Summer 1971), 92-93; Thomson, “Report on Persia,” in Issawi, EHI, 31-32.

146 Bakhash, Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy and Reform, 279.

147 Browne, Edward G., The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1910), 240Google Scholar.

148 Issawi, EHI, 128, 339. He points out that this was a lesser revenue/debt ratio than Egypt (one-half) or Turkey (one-third) but Iran had almost no productive investments to show for its debt.

149 Abrahamian, Ervand, “Oriental Despotism: The Case of Qajar Iran,” pp. 3-31 in International Journal of Middle East Studies, volume 5, number 1 (1974), 31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

150 Nowshirvani, “The Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture,” 557.