WILLEM FLOOR studied development economics and non-western sociology, as well as Persian, Arabic and Islamology from 1963-67 at the University of Utrecht (the Netherlands). He received his doctoral degree from the University of Leiden in 1971 and went on to work for the World Bank as an energy specialist. Throughout this time, he published extensively on the socio-economic history of Iran. Since his retirement from the World Bank in 2002 he has published numerous scholarly history books and translations, including: Public Health in Qajar Iran, Agriculture in Qajar Iran, The History of Theater in Iran, The Persian Gulf: A Politcal and Economic History of Five Port Cities, The Persian Gulf: The Rise of the Gulf Arabs, and Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin's Travels Through Northern Persia 1770 1774.

Titles and Emoluments in Safavid Iran: A Third Manual of Safavid Administration contains unique and important information on offices, ethnic attitudes and administrative developments in Iran s Safavid government (1495 1720). It provides the official honorific title for each official (and the variations thereof), which show the importance of these titles in the intricate structure of social and political standing among the power elite. The commentary's long database of all known administrative jurisdictions with names and dates of each of its governors gives us a more nuanced understanding of how the Safavid administration functioned, not only at the central level but also at the provincial one. This, together with a detailed index, allows the reader to find the names of individual governors and follow their careers. This book facilitates the analysis of power relations between the central and tribal interests as well as other groups, and the changes therein over time. It is an essential historical resource for all those interested in Iran s Safavid era.