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Lisbeth S. Fried's insightful study investigates the impact of Achaemenid rule on the political power of local priesthoods during the 6th-4th centuries B.C.E. Scholars typically assume that, as long as tribute was sent to Susa, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, subject peoples remained autonomous. Fried's work challenges this assumption. She examines the inscriptions, coins, temple archives, and literary texts from Babylon, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Judah and concludes that there was no local autonomy. The only people with power in the Empire were Persians and their appointees, and this was true for Judah as well. The Judean priesthood achieved its longed-for independence only much later, under the Maccabees

During the reign of the Safavid Shāh ʿAbbās I (reg. 996-1038/1588-1629), Isfahan was the center of power, diplomacy and trade of Iran. Every year scores of diplomatic envoys and traders would make their way to the capital in pursuit of some political or commercial gain. The present collection of Persian letters and documents, whose originals are kept in the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III in Naples, gives a fine view of the major issues in international relations that ʿAbbās I had to deal with during most of his reign. The collection consists for the greater part of translations of documents from various European courts and religious bodies and authorities, prepared by the interpreters of the Carmelite mission in Isfahan. Among the subjects: the silk trade, Anglo-Spanish relations, the threat of the Ottomans, the importance of Russia in an alternative trade route to Europe, foreign access to Persiaʾs ports, and the interests of the Catholic church