John R. Perry (2) (1942–)

It's very easy to get lost and disoriented due to the rapid, sustained onslaught of names and dates. Of course, names and dates are important to know, and undoubtedly 18th century Iran was in such a chaotic state that's it'd probably be hard to write about the era without confusing the reader. Perhaps, then, a history of this period is not well-suited to this "Makers of the Muslim World" series, seeing as it is introductory in nature. Perry's book is so dense and laconic that it requires too much from the intended audience of this series. Perhaps a shift in focus away from straight political and military history -- which occupies 90% of the book's pages -- towards other subjects that lend themselves more to gradual development, like culture, religion, institutions, Karim's character, etc., would have been wise. Those things are addressed in this book but they get very short shrift. As it is, the book is overwhelmingly dense and comes across more as cheat sheet for someone already familiar with the subject than an introductory work for curious outsiders.… (mer)