This volume covers the history of Iran from the collapse of the Il-Khanid empire (c. 1335) to the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The period is of special interest as one which, in the traditional view, witnessed the emergence of Iran as a 'national state'. It is in the latter half of this era that moderate Shi'ism acquired the definitive hold on the country which has been maintained to the present day, and which helps to differentiate Iran from the other Islamic states of south-west Asia. In addition to chapters on commercial and diplomatic contacts with Europe - contacts usually fortified by a common hostility to the Ottoman Turks - which became prominent from the sixteenth century, the volume contains chapters on social and economic history, the arts and architecture, the exact sciences, religion, philosophy and literature.