Kamran Talattof. Nezami Ganjavi and Classical Persian Literature: Demystifying the Mystic, Palgrave MacMillan, Switzerland, 2022, ISBN 978-3-030-97989-8, 284 pp.

Initially drawn to anthologies as a methodology to tell a social history of Isfahan, Babayan encountered in maj-mu`ah s and muraqq`as a discursive world that allowed for a new reading of social interaction and intimacy in the early modern Persianate urban environment. The City as Anthology , although slightly unwieldy at times as it shifts from detailed case study to detailed case study, is none-theless extremely effective in its careful approach to a unique and complicated genre of archival material; the implications of these innovative readings are, in turn, powerfully conveyed by Babayan in an intricate prose and style of argumentation. In addition to introducing and reha-bilitating this genre of anthologies, this study provides a “ fresh take ” and effectively re-aligns how we understand and interpret the constructs of gender and sexuality in Safavid Iran.