The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver 1600–1730. By Rudolph P. Mathee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xxi, 290. $64.95.
本书利用西方档案资料，研究了萨法维时期伊朗丝绸贸易的政治经济，填补了前现代伊朗经济史研究的空白，对关注中东贸易和欧洲-伊朗关系的学者有参考价值。
Since the revolution of 1979 there has opened a great gap in scholarship on the economic history of premodern Iran. As the author of the present study has appropriately noted, over the past two decades the historiography of premodern Iran has suffered from ideological constraints (on Iranian scholars) as well as lack of access to local sources for western scholars. In light of these limitations, the present study on the political economy of silk trade in Safavid Iran is a refreshing reminder that not all is lost in an otherwise hopeless situation. Using predominantly western (including Russian) archival sources, the author has made a significant contribution to the histories of western European (and particularly Dutch maritime) trade with Iran, of Safavid commerce, and of the politics of the Middle Eastern silk trade.