"A Highly Favoured Country"? Iranian Travellers' Views of Late Hanoverian Britain

For many years, Iranian views of Britain have been unfavourable. Yet, perhaps counter-intuitively, very positive impressions of Britain were formed by the first small group of Iranians to visit London, nearly two hundred years ago. They commented on everything; constitutional monarchy, politics, foreign policy, economics, society and social issues. In many cases their views of Britain contrasted with their unfavourable views of their own country, reflecting an eagerness to see Iran emulate Britain and embrace Modernisation/Westernisation. Yet their views were not uncritical and they were as accurate and as well-founded as the views of Iran put forward by British observers of Iran like Curzon

Constitutional monarchy · Economic history · Foreign policy · Modernization theory · Monarchy · Political science · Politics · Westernization · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law