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

Abstract

Reviewed by: Iran and a French Empire of Trade, 1700–1808: The Other Persian Letters by Junko Thérèse Takeda Susan Mokhberi Iran and a French Empire of Trade, 1700–1808: The Other Persian Letters. By junko thérèse takeda. Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020. 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.1 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 [End Page 149] loyalty over ingenuity, talent or even wealth," thereby leading to chaotic results. Chapter two traces the 1705 embassy of Jean-Baptiste Fabre to Persia and the woman who accompanied him, Marie Petit, a former Madam and woman of questionable repute. Her role in French-Persian relations was most famously laid out in the 1950s by historian Laurence Lockhart.2 The French sources, written by Petit's male opponents discredited her as a hindrance to politics and marked her as a symbol of disorder. Takeda teases out Marie Petit's voice and salvages her side of the story thereby raising Petit from a marginal, tarnished figure to a role of importance in international politics. Chapter three traces continued attempts to forge a treaty between France and Persia in the early eighteenth century. Individuals, including a rich Armenian merchant, spearheaded efforts to supply Persia with arms against the opponents that encircled the Safavid empire. Takeda highlights the personal tragedy and struggles such individuals underwent to shape international relations. For instance, the Armenian merchant was one of the wealthiest merchants in Yerevan when he embarked on his commercial and diplomatic quest to Europe. He became Persia's first consul to France but after surviving the plague in Marseille and thirteen years of difficulties, he died in Marseille in ruins. Chapter four connects Enlightenment ideas of Revolution to events in Asia. Montesquieu, Voltaire, and others wrote about the turbulent transformations in government across Asia. Takeda carefully unpacks this vast Enlightenment literature on the political convulsions that shook Persia. In tune with the recent translation of Jürgen Osterhammel's essay on the impact of Nadir Shah, the Persian eighteenth-century conqueror who took over the weakened Safavid dynasty and established a vast but short-lived Asian empire, Takeda shows how discussions of Nadir Shah's rise and fall shaped the French conversation about revolution and notions of violence and human rights.3 Taking into account the vast literature on Persian revolutions, [End Page 150] Takeda convincingly shows that the causes of the French Revolution included discussions stretching from Persia and beyond, and therefore more global than previously imagined. Chapter five spotlights the oft-forgotten personality, dubbed the "other" Rousseau, Jean-François Rousseau, the cousin of Jean Baptiste. Raised in Persia, Jean-François was an advocate of the French Revolution and one of...