This volume explores the troubled eighteenth century in Iran, between the collapse of the Safavids and the establishment of the new Qajar dynasty in the early decades of the nineteenth century.Despite the striking military successes of Nader Shah, to defeat the Afghan invaders, drive back the Ottomans in the west, and launch campaigns into India and Central Asia, Iran steadily lost territory in the Caucasus and the east, where Persian arms failed to recover lands lost to the Afghans and the Ozbeks. The chapters of this book cover the continuity and change over this transitional period from a range of perspectives including political history, historiography, art and material culture.