Introduction -- 1. The Body Politic and the Rise of the Safavids -- 2. The Qazvin Period and the Idea of the Safavids -- 3. Man of the Pen, Pillar of the State : Hatem Beg Ordubadi and the Safavid Empire -- 4. The Idea of Iran in the Safavid Period : Dynastic Pre-eminence and Urban Pride -- 5. Safavid Town Planning -- 6. From Absolute Prince to Despot: The Political Representations of Safavid Iran in Seventeenth-Century France -- 7. The Idea of Baqer al-Majlesi as The Idea of Iran: The Safavid Era -- 8. Practising Philosophy, Imagining Iran in the Safavid Period -- 9. Popular Religiosity and Vernacular Turkic: A Qezelbash Catechism from Safavid Iran -- 10. O Muhibbi, You've Lit Your Lamp with Khosrow's Burning Passion : Persian Poetry as Perceived by Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Authors -- 11. Commercial Relations between Safavid Persia and Western Europe -- 12. The World is an Oyster and Iran, the Pearl': Representations of Iran in Safavid Persian Travel Literature -- 13. Local and Transregional Places in the Works of Safavid Men of Letters -- 14. Shii Rulers, Safavid Alliance and the Religio-Political Landscape of the Deccan -- 15. Safavids and Ozbeks -- 16. The Evolution of the Safavid Policy towards Eastern Georgia -- 17. Flora in Safavid Paintings from Shah Tahmasp's Shahnama and Later Works -- 18. The Making of New Art : From the Khazana to its Audience at the Court of Shah Soleyman -- Index.