Empire of the mind
Subtitle: a history of Iran
By: Michael Axworthy.
Publisher: Hurst
Published: 2007
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 333
ISBN-13: 9781850658719
Subjects: Iran -- History.
Description: "Empire of the Mind tells the story of Iranian history from the earliest times up to the present day, from before the Achaemenids through to the Islamic Republic. It highlights the uniqueness of Iranian identity as one of the oldest continuing civilisations in the world. In doing so, as well as describing political events and covering military and dynastic matters, it emphasises the role of cultural, literary, religious and intellectual movements in Iran, and the leading personalities and ideas that shaped them, in order to demonstrate the way Iran has had an influence in the Middle East and Asia (and beyond) through the power of Persianate culture rather than through conventional political and military means - an Empire of the Mind at least as much as an Empire of the Sword. The book explains the origin of some of the paradoxes of Iran, that derive from Iran's complex history of Empires (Parthian, Sassanid, Abbasid, Safavid), foreign invasions (Alexandrian, Arab, Mongol) and religious revolutions, giving due attention to minorities like the Jews (who have been present in Iran since before the beginning of the earliest human empire), Kurds, Zoroastrians, Armenians and Azeris."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 313-322) and index.
Table of contents: title: Origins : Zoroaster, the Achaemenids, and the Greeks; title: The Iranian revival : Parthians and Sassanids; title: Islam and invasions : the Arabs, Turks and Mongols : the Iranian reconquest of Islam, the Sufis, and the poets; title: Shiʻism and the Safavids; title: The fall of the Safavids, Nader Shah, the eighteenth-century interregnum, and the early years of the Qajar dynasty; title: The crisis of the Qajar monarchy, the revolution of 1905-1911 and the accession of the Pahlavi dynasty; title: The Pahlavis, and the revolution of 1979; title: Iran since the revolution : Islamic revival, war and confrontation; title: From Khatami to Ahmadinejad, and the Iranian predicament.