• Agriculture in Qajar Iran
  
  Agriculture was the mainstay of Iran's economy in the nineteenth century, yet little is known about it. Historians have rarely taken that important reality into account when writing on the economic or social history of that period, and until now there have been no comprehensive studies of Iranian agriculture. Now, in Agriculture in Qajar Iran, renowned scholar Willem Floor has compiled an all-encompassing analysis of nineteenth-century Iranian agriculture based on extensive research into previously untapped Persian and European archives. Floor presents farming in Iran from the ground up and in its every dimension. His investigation covers farming methods like irrigation and seeding, the raising of livestock, and the range of crops cultivated, from wheat, barley, and rice, to the more notorious cash crops of tobacco and opium. Floor also delves into methods of forestry and fishing, subjects about which very little is known and even less has been written, until now.[more>>]


• The History of Theater in Iran
  
  Although most people do not speak of theater and Iran in the same breath, dramatic expression has always been a fixture of Iranian culture. Some 2500 years ago, kings and commoners alike were regaled by comic theater in the form of dance and mime, accompanied by music. The dancers often wore masks, a vestige of an earlier era when such dances were enacted as religious rites. Comic drama also took a slapstick form, in which social situations were lampooned and people ridiculed by imitating their accents and behavior. Yet another ancient dramatic art was that of puppets, known to exist much earlier than its attested date of about 1000 CE. Only glove and string puppets were popular in Iran; shadow puppetry failed to win a following.
  
  Like comic dance and mime, narrative drama originated in religious rites. Secularization of these rites produced an epic tradition that was very popular in pre-Islamic Iran. The bard had an important place in social life, and the verbal art of poetry, storytelling, elegy and recitation thrived, often accompanied by music. In Islamic times, this art form was given impetus by elegies and public recitations about the heroic deeds of ancient kings. In addition, Iran produced the only form of Islamic religious epic drama (ta`ziyeh-khvani), which dealt with the martyrdom of Imam Hoseyn.
  In traditional Iranian theater, there was no real difference between high and low culture, although artists attached to the royal court and sponsored by the rich tended to be more competent than those who performed for the public at large. With the exception of religious and narrative drama, written texts were seldom used. The artists—whether comedian, mime, puppeteer, elegist or storyteller performed both in public and private spaces.[more>>]
  
  
• Public Health in Qajar Iran
  
  Until Now, there have been no books and only a few articles available in English that deal with the actual practice of medicine in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Iran. Willem Floor’s Public Health in Qajar Iran fills this lacuna, giving a broad and comprehensive survey of the state of public
  health, medical practice, and its practitioners in 1800-1925. Based on firsthand accounts of European travelers and doctors who practiced and observed medical treatment, the study provides an overview of the major diseases the population suffered and how these were treated. It also includes the available evidence logged by Iranian patients abroad and at home, as well as contemporary Persian texts that comment on public health and its practice in Iran.[more>>]