"Social architecture is a theoretical approach that takes the city itself as a text. The built environment reflects the social system and the ways in which that system is expressed, reproduced, and experienced. The defining architectural element of Safavid Isfahan was the Maidan-i Naqsh-i Jahan, the great piazza around which Shah 'Abbas built the nucleus of his new capital.". "This volume offers significant contributions in three separate fields: (1) it is the first comprehensive study of Isfahan, one of the great cities of early modern Eurasia (2) it contributes a significant chapter to our understanding of Iran under the Safavids, 1500-1722 and (3) it adds a great deal to the literature on cities in the Middle East and to the "Islamic city" model."--BOOK JACKET.