Shah Abbas: The Ruthless King Who Became an Iranian Legend

Shah Abbas, by David Blow, is the first English-language biography of Shah Abbas I of the Safavid dynasty. Reigning from 1588 to 1629, Shah Abbas lifted Iran from disarray to the height of its power and adorned his capital, Isfahan, so magnificently that it earned the name "Half the World." The book was published by I.B. Tauris in 2009.

To reconstruct the king's life, campaigns, and court, Blow draws on both Persian chronicles and the travel accounts and dispatches of contemporary European envoys. He shows both faces of the ruler without flinching: a great statesman, builder, and patron of art and architecture on one side, and a suspicious, ruthless sovereign who spared not even his closest kin to secure the throne on the other.

David Blow — a Cambridge-trained historian who studied Persian at SOAS and served as a BBC correspondent — has made this a highly readable gateway to the Safavid golden age. For diaspora readers who want to know Iran's imperial heritage not only in the modern era but deep in its history, it is a clear and reliable starting point.