A brilliant feat of resurrection (Tom Holland, author of Dominion), offering a stunning portrait of the magnificent splendor and enduring legacy of ancient Persia

The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of Asia and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. From the palace-city of Persepolis, Cyrus the Great, Darius, Xerxes, and their heirs reigned supreme for centuries until the conquests of Alexander of Macedon brought the empire to a swift and unexpected end in the late 330s BCE.

In Persians, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the epic story of this dynasty and the world it ruled. Drawing on Iranian inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, art, and archaeology, he shows how the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the world's first superpower--one built, despite its imperial ambition, on cooperation and tolerance. This is the definitive history of the Achaemenid dynasty and its legacies in modern-day Iran, a book that completely reshapes our understanding of the ancient world.

A masterfully researched history of Iran from 1501 to 2009

The defiant spirit of Iran] is brought to life in this monumental history of the past 500 years.--Richard Spencer, The Times (London)

A majestic work that goes a long way in unraveling . . . the country's enigmas and apparent contradictions.--Ervand Abrahamian, New York Review of Books

This history of modern Iran is not a survey in the conventional sense but an ambitious exploration of the story of a nation. It offers a revealing look at how events, people, and institutions are shaped by currents that sometimes reach back hundreds of years. The book covers the complex history of the diverse societies and economies of Iran against the background of dynastic changes, revolutions, civil wars, foreign occupation, and the rise of the Islamic Republic.

Abbas Amanat combines chronological and thematic approaches, exploring events with lasting implications for modern Iran and the world. Drawing on diverse historical scholarship and emphasizing the twentieth century, he addresses debates about Iran's culture and politics. Political history is the driving narrative force, given impetus by Amanat's decades of research and study. He layers the book with discussions of literature, music, and the arts; ideology and religion; economy and society; and cultural identity and heritage.

Covering the period from the early nineteenth century to the present day, Modern Iran: A History in Documents brings together primary sources in translation that shed light on aspects of the political, social, cultural, and intellectual history of modern Iran. It makes use of a combination of documents that include newspapers and the periodical press, diaries, memoirs, letters, speeches, and essays that have been translated here for the first time from Persian. It focuses on the momentous changes that society went through, encompassing not only political events and developments but also ideas, perceptions, and mindsets. As a result, in addition to well-known texts of major diplomatic conventions, this book also includes lesser-known passages that describe the reception of and response to major developments on the part of different segments of society, both men and women. The book is divided into ten chapters, with the last one bringing together documents that offer insights into recent events; these documents include contrasting viewpoints expressed in the Iranian press regarding the nuclear agreement reached in 2015 between Iran and six world powers.

Extensively revised and updated in this fifth edition, The Modern Middle East explores how the forces associated with global modernity have shaped the social, economic, cultural, and political life in the region over the course of the past 500 years.

Beginning with the first glimmerings of the current international state and economic systems in the sixteenth century, this book examines the impact of imperial and imperialist legacies, the great nineteenth-century transformation, cultural continuities and upheavals, international diplomacy, economic booms and busts, and the emergence of authoritarian regimes and the varied forms of resistance to them and to imperialism in an area of vital concern to us all.

The text is engagingly written--drawing from the author's own research and other studies--and enriched with maps and photographs, original documents, and an abundance of supplementary materials.

From the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller LAWRENCE IN ARABIA a stunningly revelatory narrative history of one of the most momentous events in modern times, the jaw-dropping stupidity of the American government, and the dawn of the age of religious nationalism.

On November 16th, 1977, at a state dinner in the White House, President Jimmy Carter toasted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, Shadow of God on Earth, praising his enlightened leadership and extolling Iran as a stabilizing influence in that part of the world. Iran had the world's fifth largest army and was awash in billions of dollars in oil revenues. Construction cranes dotted the skyline of its booming capital, Tehran. The regime's feared secret police force SAVAK had crushed communist opposition, and the Shah had bought off the conservative Muslim clergy inside the country. He seemed invulnerable, and invaluable to the United States as an ally in the Cold War. Fourteen months later the Shah fled Iran into exile, forced from the throne by a volcanic religious revolution led by a fiery cleric named Ayatollah Khomeini. How could the United States, which had one of the largest CIA stations in the world and thousands of military personnel in Iran, have been so blind?
The spellbinding story Scott Anderson weaves is one of a dictator oblivious to the disdain of his subjects and a superpower blundering into disaster. The Shah emerges as a fascinating, Shakespearean character - a wannabe Richard III unaware of the depth of dissent to his rule, indecisive like Hamlet when action was called for, and at the end Lear-like as he raged against his fate. The Americans made terrible decisions at almost every juncture, from a secret pact designed by Kissinger and Nixon, to dismissing reports from the one diplomat who saw how hated the Shah was by the Iranian people (unlike almost all his colleagues, he spoke Farsi), to Jimmy Carter allowing the Shah to come to America for medical treatment, which set off the hostage crisis which forever damaged American influence in the world.
Scott Anderson tells this astonishing tale with the narrative brio, mordant wit, and keen analysis that made his bestselling LAWRENCE IN ARABIA one of the key texts in understanding the modern Middle East. Based on voluminous research and dozens of interviews, KING OF KINGS is driven by penetrating portraits of the people involved - the Iranian-American doctor who convinced American officials Khomeini was a moderate; the American teacher who learned of Khomeini's influence long before the cleric was even mentioned in official reports; the Shah's court minister who kept a detailed diary of all their interactions; the Shah's wife Farah who still mourns her lost kingdom; the hypocritical and misguided Jimmy Carter; and the implacable Khomeini who outmaneuvered his foes at every turn.
The Iranian Revolution, Anderson convincingly argues, was as world-shattering an event as the French and Russian revolutions. In the Middle East, in India, in Southeast Asia, in Europe, and now in the United States, the hatred of economically-marginalized, religiously-fervent masses for a wealthy secular elite has led to violence and upheaval - and Iran was the template. KING OF KINGS is a bravura work of history, and a warning.

Silenced in Beirut: American Businessman Amer Fakhoury's Six-Month Ordeal as a Hostage in Lebanon is a heartrending, harrowing, yet illuminating memoir by four devoted daughters recounting the false arrest, cruel confinement, and induced cancer inflicted on their father by the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese government from September 2019 to March 2020.

It is the first complete telling of the headline-making story of Amer Fakhoury, a successful American businessman, who was lured to his native Lebanon by purposely deceptive assurances that the country would again welcome members of the prosperous Christian middle class who fled for their lives as a vengeance-filled Hezbollah terrorist militia took over Lebanon in 2000.

In this novelistic memoir written in the third person, Guila, Mandy, Macy, and Zoya Fakhoury describe the illegal detention and physical and medical torture of their father; the show trial by a corrupt court system determined to find him guilty; the aggressive bipartisan intervention of US officials, from President Donald Trump to Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) to obtain his release; and the conditions that caused an exceptionally fit man to succumb in a matter of months to fourth-stage cancer.

Through flashbacks, they intersperse earlier instances in their father's life that shed light on the ordeal he endured amid the hostage crisis.

Along the way, readers learn about the politics of Lebanon and gain a firsthand lesson in how beautiful places are in particular danger of being overrun by the worst people-and how this once-prosperous land is today on the verge of starvation and economic collapse and is likely to again be cursed with front-page news headlines.

Written in an easy-to-read and concise style, the book resurfaces the forgotten and grossly misunderstood history of Lebanon's noblest fighters, the South Lebanese Army, for whom Amer Fakhoury risked his life and because of whom the leadership in Beirut thought he should die.

Told by four young women whose childhood home was routinely invaded by Hezbollah yet who went on to become successful scientists and engineers, Silenced in Beirut combines the political and the personal-the intrigue of a political kidnapping amid the love and light of family and faith.

#1 bestselling author Ken Follett tells the inspiring true story of the Middle East hostage crisis that began in 1978, and of the unconventional means one American used to save his countrymen. . . .

When two of his employees were held hostage in a heavily guarded prison fortress in Iran, one man took matters into his own hands: businessman H. Ross Perot. His team consisted of a group of volunteers from the executive ranks of his corporation, handpicked and trained by a retired Green Beret officer. To free the imprisoned Americans, they would face incalculable odds on a mission that only true heroes would have dared. . . .

In the essays collected here, Abbas Milani uses an impressive array of cross-disciplinary Western and Iranian theories and texts to investigate the crucial question of modernity in Iran today. He offers a wealth of new insights into the thousand-year-old conflict in Iran between the search for modernity and the forces of religious obscurantism. The essays trace the roots of Shiite Islamic fundamentalism and offer illuminating accounts of the work of Iranian intellectuals-both men and women-and their artistic movements as they struggle to find a new path toward a genuine modernity in Iran that is congruent with Iran's rich cultural heritage. Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran challenges the hitherto accepted theory that modernity and its related concepts of democracy and freedom are Western in essence. It also demonstrates that Iran and the West have more that brings them together than separates them in their search for such modern ideals as rationalism, the rule of law, and democracy. These essays will reward the scholar and the general reader alike, and will go far toward explaining the enigma that is Iran today.

A study of transnational identity, migration, and state loyalties told through the social and political history of Iran's Khuzestan province.

In 1980, Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist forces invaded Khuzestan, one of the oldest and richest provinces in Iran, triggering the Iran-Iraq War. Shaherzad Ahmadi's Bordering on War examines the social history of Khuzestan and sheds light on how border dwellers, provincial leaders, and migrants in the region shaped Iran and Iraq's history before, during, and after the war.

Drawing from a rich collection of Persian- and Arabic-language archival sources--rarely used by western scholars due to restrictions in Iran--Ahmadi's research focuses on Arab Iranians and argues that Iranian border dwellers and migrants formed local, non-national loyalties, thereby eschewing bureaucratic pressures to confine loyalties to a single nation-state. The transnational character and ethnically diverse composition of Khuzestan, especially in the oil-rich towns on the southwestern border, led many, including Iraq's Ba'ath Party, to question the national belonging of Arab Iranians. Bordering on War contributes to a wider discussion about the ability of individuals and communities to exert agency through migration, trade, education, and other activities.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Shia Revival
A gripping account that overturns simplistic portrayals of Iran as a theocratic pariah state, revealing how its strategic moves on the world stage are driven by two pervasive threats--external aggression and internal dissolution

Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country's goals really are. Vali Nasr examines Iran's political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today's Iran is pursuing a grand strategy aimed at securing the country internally and asserting its place in the region and the world.

Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, and original in-depth interviews with Iranian decision makers, Nasr brings to light facts and events in Iran's political history that have been overlooked until now. He traces the roots of Iran's strategic outlook to its experiences over the past four decades of war with Iraq in the 1980s and the subsequent American containment of Iran, invasion of Iraq in 2003, and posture toward Iran thereafter. Nasr reveals how these experiences have shaped a geopolitical outlook driven by pervasive fear of America and its plans for the Middle East.

Challenging the notion that Iran's foreign policy simply reflects its revolutionary values or theocratic government, Iran's Grand Strategy provides invaluable new insights into what Iran wants and why, explaining the country's resistance to the United States, its nuclear ambitions, and its pursuit of influence and proxies across the Middle East.

In August 1953, the CIA orchestrated the swift overthrow of Iran's democratically elected leader and installed Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in his place. Over the next twenty-six years, the United States backed the unpopular, authoritarian shah and his secret police; in exchange, it reaped a huge share of Iran's oil wealth.

The blowback was inevitable, as this relevant, readable (Kirkus Reviews) history by noted Iran scholar Ervand Abrahamian shows. When the 1979 Iranian Revolution deposed the shah and replaced his puppet government with a radical Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the shift reverberated throughout the Middle East and the world, casting a long, dark shadow over U.S.-Iran relations that extends to the present day.

In this well-documented account [that] will become indispensable reading for students of the modern Middle East (Choice), Abrahamian uncovers little-known documents that challenge conventional interpretations of the coup. Offering new insights into his history-shattering event (Reason.com), his riveting account transforms America's understanding of a crucial turning point in modern U.S.-Iran relations.

The definitive history of Iran, from the ancient Persian empires to today

Iran is a land of contradictions. It is an Islamic republic, but one in which only 1.4 percent of the population attend Friday prayers. Iran's religious culture encompasses the most censorious and dogmatic Shi'a Muslim clerics in the world, yet its poetry insistently dwells on the joys of life: wine, beauty, sex. Iranian women are subject to one of the most restrictive dress codes in the Islamic world, but make up nearly 60 percent of the student population of the nation's universities.

In A History of Iran, acclaimed historian Michael Axworthy chronicles the rich history of this complex nation from the Achaemenid Empire of sixth century BC to the revolution of 1979 to today, including a close look at Iran's ongoing attempts to become a nuclear power. A History of Iran offers general readers an essential guide to understanding this volatile nation, which is once again at the center of the world's attention.

A stunning portrait of the magnificent splendor and enduring legacy of ancient Persia

The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of Asia and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. From the palace-city of Persepolis, Cyrus the Great, Darius, Xerxes, and their heirs reigned supreme for centuries until the conquests of Alexander of Macedon brought the empire to a swift and unexpected end in the late 330s BCE.

In Persians, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the epic story of this dynasty and the world it ruled. Drawing on Iranian inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, art, and archaeology, he shows how the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the world's first superpower--one built, despite its imperial ambition, on cooperation and tolerance. This is the definitive history of the Achaemenid dynasty and its legacies in modern-day Iran, a book that completely reshapes our understanding of the ancient world.

7 manuscritos completos en 1 libro

• Sumerios: Una guía fascinante acerca de la historia sumeria antigua, la mitología sumeria y el imperio mesopotámico de la civilización sumeria (Libro en Español/Sumerians Spanish Book Version)
• Gilgamesh: Una Fascinante Guía de la Epopeya del rey Gilgamesh
• Ur: Una Guía Fascinante sobre Una de las Ciudades-Estado Sumerias Más Importantes de la Antigua Mesopotamia
• Historia de Asiria: Una guía fascinante de los asirios y su poderoso imperio en la antigua Mesopotamia
• Babilonia: Una guía fascinante del reino de la antigua Mesopotamia, desde el Imperio acadio hasta la batalla de Opis contra Persia, sin olvidar la mitología y el legado de Babilonia
• Hammurabi: Una guía fascinante acerca del sexto rey de la primera dinastía babilonia, incluyendo el Código de Hammurabi
• El Imperio Persa: Una guía fascinante de la historia de Persia, desde los antiguos imperios aqueménida, partenopeo y sasánida hasta las dinastías safávida, afsárida y kayar

La primera parte de este libro incluye:

• Un resumen de los antiguos sumerios
• La estructura social de los antiguos sumerios
• La religión y la mitología de los antiguos sumerios
• La cronología de los reinos sumerios

Segunda parte de este libro, usted:

• La Historia de la Epopeya
• Las Once Tablillas que Componen el Poema
• Y mucho, mucho más!

Tercera parte de este libro, usted:

• Tener una idea de cómo nació, creció, alcanzó su cenit, cayó, resucitó y finalmente pereció Ur hasta que resurgió hace poco más de un siglo y medio.
• Conocer su historia, cargada de guerras, comercio, adoración divina, corrupción política y entretenimiento.
• Y aprender mucho, mucho más sobre esta notable antigua ciudad.

Cuarta parte de este libro, usted:

• Los asirios llegan a Mesopotamia: el comienzo del período asirio
• El nacimiento de una civilización: Del antiguo Imperio asirio al Imperio asirio medio
• El comienzo del Imperio neoasirio
• Y mucho, mucho más!

Quinta parte de este libro, usted:

• La tierra de los babilonios
• La vida, la cultura y los roles de género a lo largo de los años
• Donde la superstición se encuentra con la ciencia
• Babilonia antes de los babilonios
• Y mucho, mucho más!

Sexta parte de este libro, usted:

• Babilonia antes de Hammurabi: la posición de la ciudad en Babilonia y sus primeros dirigentes
• El ascenso de Hammurabi: guerras, logros y cronología de Hammurabi
• El reinado de Hammurabi: Babilonia durante su reinado, relaciones con otras ciudades
• Y mucho, mucho más!

Séptima parte de este libro, usted:

• Quiénes son los persas? La historia de la población humana en Irán
• El nacimiento del imperio aqueménida: El surgimiento y el reinado de Ciro el Grande
• La gloria del Imperio de los aqueménidas: Cambises y Darío
• El principio del fin: El reinado de Jerjes y la caída de la dinastía aqueménida
• Y mucho, mucho más!

Adquiera este libro ahora para aprender más sobre mesopotamia!

THE HARMLESS NECESSARY CAT: A World War II Family Saga in Allied-Occupied Iran

Tehran, 1941. The world is ablaze, but in neutral Iran, life carries on-until British and Russian tanks roll in.

Though much has been written about World War II, little is known of Iran's trials during the conflict. Many remember the Japanese surprise assault on Pearl Harbor, epitomizing deceitful warfare, just as Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's treacherous invasion of the Soviet Union, played a parallel tune of unexpected aggression.

While these events captivated global attention, the Allies launched a sneak attack on Iran, seeking to secure crucial supply lines and curb the growing threat of German influence.

Overnight, the lives of ordinary Iranian families, like the Ahangars, are thrown into chaos. As their world crumbles, the Ahangars must make impossible choices to survive amid the dangerous tides of war.

In this coming-of-age story, young Sohrab Ahangar finds solace in an unlikely bond with his sister-in-law Krista and a growing friendship with Karl, two German expatriates whose community's presence in Iran adds to the rising tension. As Sohrab confronts the disintegration of his once-peaceful life, he uncovers a web of hidden loyalties.

Inspired by a true story, Sepehr Haddad's The Harmless Necessary Cat weaves a powerful narrative of love, loss, and resilience. This mesmerizing tale depicts innocent lives caught in history's crosshairs, offering a poignant testament to the enduring power of hope and perseverance in the face of war.

Ilkhanid Capital Cities studies the capital cities founded by the Mongol Ilkhans in Iran during the Ilkhanid period (1256-1335). It primarily focuses on two major cities in the northwest of Iran, Ghazaniyya and Sultaniyya, and examines how the court-sponsored urban projects in these two cities reflected the interactions between Perso-Islamic sedentary concepts and Mongolian nomadic traditions.

Questioning the earlier reductive scholarly framework that positioned the Mongols as uncultured barbarians, this study stresses the active role of the Mongol elite not only as agents, but also cultural donors in the Perso-Mongol cultural zeitgeist of late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Iran. It provides a fuller and more convincing picture of the Ilkhanid city, which is characterized by a hybrid quality injected not only into the physical structure of the city, but also into the taste, motivations, and world views of its patrons.

For decades, the Greater Middle East has been a leading challenge to American foreign policy. This vast region - ranging from North Africa in the west to Afghanistan in the east, and from the borders of Central Asia down to the Horn of Africa in the south - has been a cauldron of turmoil that has affected not just American interests, but generated threats to the American homeland.

The multitude of challenges in this region has led to some confusion. What should be the focus of U.S. policy in the Greater Middle East?

This book explores this state of affairs and its implications by delving deeper into how the current geopolitics of the Greater Middle East came to be. A first few chapters look back to the history of the region and the historic rivalries among Turks, Arabs and Persians up to the end of the Cold War. The book then examines the main current power centers of the region - Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It then turns to the geopolitical competition among them in recent years, starting with Iran's efforts to build an Arc of Domination across the region.

The book covers the advance of Islamists following the Arab Upheavals, the civil war among the Sunnis from 2013 to 2018, America's pendulum swings with regard to Iran policy, and the reshuffle of the region following Turkey's turn in a more nationalist direction. Finally, the book ends with an attempt to draw out implications for America's approach to the geopolitics of the Greater Middle East.

SVANTE E. CORNELL is Research Director of the American Foreign Policy Council's Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington D.C., and a co-founder of the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm, Sweden. Cornell was educated at the Middle East Technical University and Uppsala University. He formerly served as Associate Professor at Uppsala University and at Johns Hopkins-University-SAIS, and is also a Policy Advisor with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences.

Beginning with the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry in spring 1951 and ending with its reversal following the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in August 1953, the Iranian oil crisis was a crucial turning point in the global Cold War. The nationalization challenged Great Britain's preeminence in the Middle East and threatened Western oil concessions everywhere. Fearing the loss of Iran and possibly the entire Middle East and its oil to communist control, the United States and Great Britain played a key role in the ouster of Mosaddeq, a constitutional nationalist opposed to communism and Western imperialism. U.S. intervention helped entrench monarchical power, and the reversal of Iran's nationalization confirmed the dominance of Western corporations over the resources of the Global South for the next twenty years.

Drawing on years of research in American, British, and Iranian sources, David S. Painter and Gregory Brew provide a concise and accessible account of Cold War competition, Anglo-American imperialism, covert intervention, the political economy of global oil, and Iran's struggle against autocratic government. The Struggle for Iran dispels myths and misconceptions that have hindered understanding this pivotal chapter in the history of the post-World War II world.

The surprising story of Iran's transformation from America's ally in the Middle East into one of its staunchest adversaries

An original interpretation that puts Iranian actors where they belong: at center stage.--Michael Doran, Wall Street Journal

An extraordinary account. . . . Deeply nuanced and eloquent.--Benjamin Weinthal, Jerusalem Post

Offering a new view of one of America's most important, infamously strained, and widely misunderstood relationships of the postwar era, this book tells the history of America and Iran from the time the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was placed on the throne in 1941 to the 1979 revolution that brought the present Islamist government to power. This revolution was not, as many believe, the popular overthrow of a powerful and ruthless puppet of the United States; rather, it followed decades of corrosion of Iran's political establishment by an autocratic ruler who demanded fealty but lacked the personal strength to make hard decisions and, ultimately, lost the support of every sector of Iranian society. Esteemed Middle East scholar Ray Takeyh provides new interpretations of many key events--including the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini--significantly revising our understanding of America and Iran's complex and difficult history.