The Qajar Pact explores new perspectives on the nineteenth-century Iranian state and society, and is the first broad study of lower social groups in this period. Vanessa Martin argues that Qajar government was certainly despotic, but was also founded on a consensus based on the Islamic principles of consultation and negotiation. The author focuses on the role of the non-elite groups in urban society up to the years before the Constitutional Revolution.

The Qajar Pact explores new perspectives on the nineteenth-century Iranian state and society, and is the first broad study of lower social groups in this period. Vanessa Martin argues that Qajar government was certainly despotic, but was also founded on a consensus based on the Islamic principles of consultation and negotiation. The author focuses on the role of the non-elite groups in urban society up to the years before the Constitutional Revolution.