From the Oilfield to the Battlefield: Revolutionary Internationalism on the Iranian, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands, 1904-1921
From the Oilfield to the Battlefield (under publisher review) focuses on connected revolutions in early twentieth-century Iran and its northern and western borderlands. Drawing on original primary sources in Russian, Persian, and Turkish, it asks why—after decades of cooperation between revolutionary factions across borders—Soviet and Turkish revolutionaries dislodged old forms of government and remade their states, but Iranian monarchy survived for nearly six decades after 1921.
The Caspian World: Connections and Contentions at a Modern Eurasian Crossroads (with Abbas Amanat and Kevin Gledhill)
The essays in The Caspian World ask how the Caspian Sea—often conceived by historians as a sort of natural barrier—fostered the exchange of peoples, goods, and ideas between the peoples who lived on its shores. The Caspian World is available for free download: