Spurred by a Russian threat to India and the weakness of the Qajar dynasty (1796-1925), Britain established an extensive consular network to further its interests in southern Iran in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1888, there were just four British consulates in the country; by 1921 there were twenty-three. H. Lyman Stebbins investigates the development and consequences of British imperialism in Iran in a time of international rivalry, revolution and world war. While previous narratives of Anglo-Iranian relations have focused on the highest diplomatic circles in Tehran,...