Now in paperback, this is a history of an incomparable culture whose influence can still be seen, millennia later, in modern-day Iran and the wider Middle East. During the first and second millennia BCE a swathe of nomadic peoples migrated outward from Central Asia into the Eurasian periphery. One group of these people would find themselves encamped in an unpromising, arid region just south of the Caspian Sea. From these modest and uncertain beginnings, they would go on to form one of the most powerful empires in history: the Persian Empire. In this book, Geoffrey and Brenda Parker tell the captivating story of this ancient civilization and its enduring legacy to the world. The authors examine the unique features of Persian life and trace their influence throughout the centuries. They examine the environmental difficulties the early Persians encountered and how, in overcoming them, they were able to develop a unique culture that would culminate in the massive, first empire, the Achaemenid Empire. Extending their influence into the maritime west, they fought the Greeks for mastery of the eastern Mediterranean—one of the most significant geopolitical contests of the ancient world. And the authors paint vivid portraits of Persian cities and their spectacular achievements: intricate and far-reaching roadways, an astonishing irrigation system that created desert paradises, and, above all, an extraordinary reflection of the diverse peoples that inhabited them.
About the Author
Geoffrey Parker is Andreas Dorpalen Professor of European History and an associate of the Mershon Center at The Ohio State University. He is the author or editor of forty books, including The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659: The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries Wars, The Grand Strategy of Philip II, and The Military Revolution 1500–1800: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West. His books have won numerous awards and, in 2012, he received the biennial Heineken Prize in History, awarded by the Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences to the historian deemed to have had the greatest impact on the discipline. In 2006, nominated by some of his students, he won The Ohio State University s Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. He has also directed thirty-five doctoral theses to completion, and, in 2013, his advisees presented him with a Festschrift in honour of his seventieth birthday: The Limits of Empire: European Imperial Formations in Early Modern World History.
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