Iran and a French Empire of Trade, 1700–1808: The Other Persian Letters by Junko Thérèse Takeda (review)

Recently scholars have turned their attention to the impact Asia, and especially Persia and the Ottoman Empire, made in France prior to Montesquieu’s Persian Letters. Junko Takeda’s timely book takes off from this point in the early eighteenth century arguing that Persia continued to make a strong impact in France, shaping economics, military technology, and politics from the pre-Revolutionary era to Napoleon. Takeda unearths a truly global Enlightenment era in which Frenchmen watched events in Persia and responded, revealing the commercial and intellectual intertwining of Asian and European Empires. Takeda’s method advances the field of global history by taking a microhistorical approach. She relates accounts of unexpected characters including merchant-diplomats, former gambling-house Madams, Armenian envoys, and Enlightenment figures. The book uncovers how Persian and French relations advanced through the contributions of these various marginalized people from across the Mediterranean world, far from the halls of Versailles and revolutionary chambers. The diverse cast of figures negotiated treaties, dealt in arms and commercial exchange, and spread Enlightenment and Revolutionary ideas from Asia to France. Chapter one draws on Takeda’s extensive knowledge of the commercial politics of Marseille, the subject of her first book. Here, she explores the rise of the Fabre family, a powerful merchant family in Marseille who had ties to Versailles. She explains how the French monarchy selected one of the Fabre family members, despite inadequate experience and more qualified candidates, to become the official envoy to the Safavid Shah in 1705. The French court “rewarded