Ebrahim Hanifehpour

My research examines perceptions of Persia in early modern England. Those who lived through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries felt their world being continually reshaped - as processes of Reformation altered religious experience, the accession of James VI and I united the crowns of England and Scotland, and overseas trade heralded new links with the wider world. As they sought to navigate these changes, contemporaries looked to the classical world for models of virtue and governance. Amongst these models, the influence of Greece and Rome is well-attested. My research, however, seeks to restore ancient Persia to its place alongside them. Overlooked by historians, the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great was a fixture in the early modern intellectual landscape. Not only did early modern England look back to the example provided by ancient Persia, but, as it forged new relationships overseas, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England came into contact with Cyrus's successors: the reality of a contemporary Safavid Persia with its own diplomatic and military aims. These relationships, both imaginative and concrete, form the subject of my research.