This is a beautifully illustrated text, a copy of a text first written in the 14th century. You can examine it at https://smarthistory.org/the-ardashirnama-judeo-persian-manuscript/?fbclid=IwAR2HraOscVYdt03-zK8A8967wCODwd12JfPuRi25Y2uSW1H0Dt9eDdO7v20
The James Simon Galerie of the Staatliuche Museen zu Berlin has an ongoing exhibition on Iranian art. Click here for details.
My friend, the historian G. Rex Smith, has recently translated into English a marvelous travel diary by the French military official and traveller Pierre Loti (1850-1923). It is also available on Amazon as a Kindle Book. This day-by-day diary details Loti’s trip along the caravan trail of 1900 from the coast at Bushire to Shiraz and his ultimate goal of Isfahan in order to visit the area during the season of roses. One might expect such an account to be dry, but Loti comments on what he saw, including the people, along the way and one gets a first-hand sense of what it was like to travel a treacherous route that was at times over pure desert and at other times up or down seemingly impenetrable mountain heights. There is also a brief account of his stop at Muscat on the way to Persia. Smith, with the aid of his son, has done an admirable job in reflecting the flavor of the original French and includes 24 photographs taken by Loti. This is a book well worth reading, whether you are interested in Persia at the time or not.
The original French version is available as a pdf here. Archive.org has quite a few of his works.
For information about Loti online, check out https://biography.yourdictionary.com/pierre-loti and https://museeprotestant.org/en/notice/pierre-loti-1850-1923-2/.
An excellent analysis of U.S. policy in the Middle East by Juan Cole.
The British diplomat Sir Valentine Chirol (1852-1929) wrote a memoir entitled Fifty Years in a Changing World (New York: Harcourt and Brace, 1928). Among the areas in the Middle East that he visited or commented upon were Egypt, Syria, Ottoman Turkey, Persia and the Persian Gulf. He also has some interesting observations on India, Japan, the Balkans, Berlin and Russia. Of particular interest is his commentary on Egypt in 1876 before the British occupation. Below is an example of that.
A richly illustrated book in French from 1887 on Iraq and Persia has an incredible number of illustrations. The book can be downloaded here. I attach some of the images below regarding Baghdad, but there are many more.
At least 337 Books published in Germany on Islam and history of the Middle East are available to read online or download. Most are in German but a few are in English. To check out what is available, click below:
There is an interesting article on Qantara about the significance of the German poet Goethe’s famous West-Östliche Divan, first published 1819. To read an English translation, click here.