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 Synopsis This "is a study of the development of the Iranian carpet industry from the fifteenth century to the present. . . . {Helfgott} divides the period into three stages: . . . the fifteenth to early eighteenth centuries, generally known as the Safavid period; the early eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries;. . . and the period from 1875 to the present, when the Iranian carpet industry boomed. . . . {The author} devotes one-third of his work to the impact of the mid-nineteenth-century boom in the Persian carpet trade on Western Europeanelites and emerging middle-class tastes. . . . The remaining two-thirds of the book focuses on nomadic, village, and town production of Iranian (Kurdish, Turkic, and Persian) carpets in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." (Am Hist Rev) Bibliography. Index. Critics From Thomas M. Ricks - The American Historical Review Helfgott's chapter 'Carpets and the New Iranian Proletariat, 1870-1940' is the best part of the book. Judiciously using the missionary archives of theChurch Mission Society in Birmingham and the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, he pieces together the history of the women and children weavers in the carpet industries of Hamadan and Kirman. . . . The work is not without its flaws. Except in the book's best chapters, the reader will encounter far too many speculative comments, . . . and not one picture of a Persian carpet! The bibliography lacks any Persian sources. . . . {This} is an encyclopedic work. . . . {Helfgott} offers valuable insights into the Westerner's fascination with the 'Oriental objects' of the region. A true social history, however, of early modern and modern Iranian carpet and textile weavers, artisans, and merchants remains unwritten. From Glyn Ford - New Statesman & Society Ties that Bind replicates a series of books by followers of the marxoid historian Immanuel Wallerstein. They all demonstrate how, in Wallerstein's 'modern world system' the capitalist centre shapes production, distribution and consumption for the dependent periphery. The result is an international smorgasbord of goods, with main courses available only to Europeans and Americans. Not only has Helfgott added to the corpus of Wallersteinian scholarship, he has also produced a volume that will stand alone as a study of the social, political and economic history of that hybrid of the Orient and the west, the Persian carpet. From Nikki R. Keddie - The Middle East Journal Helfgott gives detailed consideration of carpets in the lives of nomadic tribes and, at the other extreme, of commercialization and virtually forced child labor . . . in Kirman in the early 20th century. He is acutely aware of questions of child labor, patriarchal pressures on women, long hours, and low wages. On the other hand, he does not provide enough of the relevant and available details of the different ways of organizing carpet production. . . . Thisbook includes outstanding, well-researched presentations of most aspects of the social history of carpets until ca. 1930. The discussion, however, would have been clearer had it included more recent history. . . . {Still}, there is no question but that Helfgott's book is outstandingly original, well-researched, and informative. It has no equal in its main subject. |
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