From the Diary of H.M. the Shah of Persia “We rose early in the morning, went down into a boat, and pushed off for the shore,” says Naser al-Din Shah—a.k.a. the Shah of Persia—in his travelogue, recalling his arrival in Paris on July 6, 1873.

Mirza Abu Taleb Khan (1752–1806) was a Persian travel writer from India. His writings would later inspire the Shah of Persia to embark on a years-long journey through Europe. In Khan’s travelogue, which the Shah read with great interest, the West is described through the

From the Diaries of Haj Sayyah An Iranian in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Diaries of Haj Sayyah 1859–1877 documents Haj Sayyah’s travels throughout Europe and, eventually, America, where he became a naturalized citizen—possibly making him the first Iranian-American. He is said to have been honored by American