The history of Iran's southern cities during the Qajar period continues to occupy a blind spot in Iran's modern “regional” historiography, a missive that James Gustafson attempts to remedy in his examination of Kirman's sociopolitical development from the emergence of the Qajar dynasty to the start of World War I. The era, as narrated in this work, witnesses the revival of Kirman after the devastating campaigns of Aqa Muhammad Khan, who famously blinded the city's adult male population and enslaved the bulk of its remaining inhabitants as punishment for siding with his Zand rivals in 1794. Kirman's proximity to the Persian Gulf, its fertile plains, and its distance from Tehran, allowed a unique brand of center–periphery relationship to develop in the 19th and 20th centuries. Kirman's great families, essential to the city's revival, harnessed its geography and agrarian endowment to their advantage. This is the story of a city that rises from the ashes, thanks to its notables, to earn its position as a prosperous center for trade, allowing it to play a pivotal role in Iran's foreign and domestic politics and in shaping its economic, religious, and cultural trajectory into the 20th century. Gustafson speaks to an audience of Iranian historians and largely validates prevailing theoretical conceptions of the importance of peripheries in Iran's development during the Qajar era.

The first chapter of the book frames Kirman's history and geography through the first half of the 19th century. Its revival, occurring in tandem with the rise of its great families, sees the city strategically positioned to become an integral part of Iran's economic globalization. The establishment of the Ibrahimi clan as city leaders is a first element in Kirman's rehabilitation into the Qajar political structure. In a twist of irony, these early patrons of Kirman's revival are from the very Qajar household that devastated the city in the first place. Ibrahim Khan Zahir al-Dawla, a nephew of Fath ʿAli Shah, governs the city in the first two decades of the 19th century and rebuilds Kirman's relationship with Tehran. His authority and the hereditary prominence of his descendants set into motion a relationship with the capital predicated on the will of the city's notable clans. The family's religious and cultural patronage, in particular, is pivotal in consolidating the Shaykhi movement in Iran. The Shaykhis challenged prevailing Usuli Shiʿi doctrine and shaped Babi and Bahaʾi principles in later decades. It should come as no surprise that a scion of the Ibrahimi family and the leader of the Shaykhi school in Kirman, ʿAbd al-Rida Khan Ibrahimi, was assassinated a few months after the establishment Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979. The hit is believed to have been ordered by Ayatollah Khomeini, who viewed the movement as a challenge to his authority.

The second chapter locates Kirman within the larger imperial rivalries during the second half of the 19th century, particularly the Russo–British “Great Game” for political and economic dominance. Imperial powers effectively manipulated local elites and their interpretation of the region's historiography to enhance their control. The third and fourth chapters explore the rise of Kirman as an agrarian powerhouse in Iran and the agency of the local elite in driving the region's integration into the global capitalist economy. Kirman's emergence as a center for cash crop and carpet trade is outlined at the intersection of both foreign, primarily British, and local interests. Interestingly, the region's globalization strengthened the city's elite households, whose investments in expanding landholdings, particularly during Nasir al-Din Shah's reign, created an independent regional political powerbase that allowed these families to weather famines, Iran's Constitutional Revolution, and other upheavals in later years. Their diversified holdings protected them against booms and busts in global cash crop and manufacturing trade in the first decade of the 20th century. The author argues that the increasing agrarian consolidation of Kirman's peripheries by urban notables become a model for state-sponsored centralization and modernization programs of the Pahlavi era. The fourth and fifth chapters explore the emerging urban–rural relationship in the nascent capitalist environment of Kirman, showing the persistence of local urban notables in mediating elements of modernity, ranging from new manufacturing techniques to the political and social integration of tribes. The final chapter looks at Kirman's role in the Constitutional Revolution and the successful co-optation of the movement by the city's great families.

This book clearly demonstrates the role of Kirman's notables in mediating modernity in both the local and national contexts, outside of the traditional Eurocentric view of Iran's development in the postindustrial era. It sheds light on the regional dimensions of Iran's integration into the global economy of the 19th century. The decentralization, or “de-Tehranization,” of the economic, social, and religious determinants of Qajar history is a clear strength of this book. The spotlight on local agency in the face of growing imperial pressures and the continuity of local urban elites in shaping Iran's development is an important addition to this period's historiography. The works major weaknesses are its overreliance on published sources. An exploration of French and Russian archival sources would have enriched the author's exposition of Kirman's progress in the context of imperial rivalries. Russian and French Qajar era diplomatic sources, in particular, come to mind. The author also neglects a vast repository of Persian archival sources, particularly correspondences and papers relating to Kirman's governors, family papers, tax ledgers, and other financial records whose content could shed greater light on the ebbs and flows in local center–periphery economic and political relationship. A study of the interrelationship and alliances between Iran's cities (e.g., Yazd and Kirman) during the Qajar era is still wanting in Iran's historiography. This work should stimulate further academic inquiry on the role of Iran's southern cities and their notables in shaping the country's destiny into the 20th century.