Ebrahim Hanifehpour

DPhil Research Topic

'Ruthlessness as Virtue: Perceptions of Persia in Early Modern England' Elizabethan and Jacobean culture

Supervisor: Alexandra Gajda

I am a historian of early modern Europe. My research examines how culture - political, religious, intellectual - influences the way people see their world, and how this, in turn, shapes events. 

My DPhil project examines perceptions of Persia in early modern England. That Renaissance Europe was shaped by classical Greek and Roman influences is well-known. That contemporaries looked equally to ancient Persia, however, is often overlooked.

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 - the philosophy of Plato, or the politics of Cicero, for example. My research shows that ancient Persia stood alongside these models, at the forefront of Renaissance intellectual culture. Overlooked by historians, the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great was a fixture of the classical landscape, providing a model of kingship with powerful resonances in early modern England.

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. My research examines England's relationships with both a powerful classical ideal and an ambitious potential ally. 

Publications and Research: 

'Honour and Deceit in 'The Warres of Cyrus', Classical Persia, and Elizabethan Politics', Historical Journal, Forthcoming

I completed my BA and MPhil in History at Lincoln College, Oxford. My Master's dissertation, examining classical and biblical Persia's influence on Elizabethan England, won the Oxford History Faculty Prize for best dissertation in cohort. My doctoral project is jointly funded by the AHRC and Clarendon Fund, and was awarded the Magdalen College Scholarship.

I have presented research papers on early modern politics and religion at the Ecclesiastical History Society, Reformation Studies Colloquium, and Oxford's Early Modern Britain seminar. 

For schools and public audiences, I provide lectures ranging broadly across early modern European history. As a Graduate Outreach Tutor for Oxford's History Faculty, I provide workshops and lectures for schools covering key historical skills, and exploring the role that they play in understanding our world.