Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Acknowledgments ix
4. Abbreviations x
5. Note on Transliteration xi
6. Figures xii
7. Introduction 1
8. 1. The Persianate Caspian: Isolation to Inclusion 16
9. Part I: Early Expansion: Knowledge, Commerce, and Diplomacy in the Early Modern Caspian
10. 2. The Ottoman Empire and the Caspian Sea in the Sixteenth Century 49
11. 3. Papering Over a Diplomatic Gulf: Bureaucracy and Translation between Early Modern Central Asian and Muscovite Courts 66
12. 4. Armenians and Russian Interests in the Caspian Sea, 1660–1795 91
13. 5. Astrakhan and the Caspian Sea in Russia’s Early Modern Political Geography 113
14. 6. Nader Shah and the Caspian: A Sea too Far 134
15. 7. Follow the Armenians: British Plans for the Caspian in the Eighteenth Century 151
16. Part II: Ascendency and Annexation: Empire-building, State-formation, and the Transition to the Modern
17. 8. “Under the Pretense of Trade, They Drew Maps”: Qajar Views of Russia and Russian Mapmaking in the Caspian in the Eighteenth Century 169
18. 9. Caspian Forests as Political Setting: A Socioenvironmental Study of the Bābi Resistance at the Fort of Shaykh Ṭabarsi 191
19. 10. The Custom of Customs: Licit and Illicit Crossings in the Caspian Sea, 1864–1917 207
20. 11. The Transcaspian Railroad in the Works of Nikolaĭ Karazin, 1842–1908 227
21. 12. Border Crossings: Iranian Artists in Tsarist Russia and Georgia 247
22. Part III: Resistance to Supremacy: Contesting Imperial and State Control on the Southern Caspian Littoral
23. 13. In the Glocal Crossfire: Russia, Britain, and the Caspian, 1916–1919 271
24. 14. The Jangal Movement and Regional Revolutionaries in Northern Iran, 1914–1921 292
25. 15. “The Persian Gate to Revolution”: Bolshevik Networks and Post-WWI Transnationalism in Iran 309
26. 16. Pragmatic Elements of Early Soviet Policy toward Iran 326
27. 17. Maritime Horizons: The Caspian Sea in Soviet-Iranian Relations, 1930s–1980s 350
28. Bibliography 365
29. Contributors 403
30. Index 405