The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199732159.001.0001

The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History

Edited by Touraj Daryaee

Abstract

Iranian history has long been a source of fascination for European and American observers. The country's ancient past preoccupied nineteenth-century historians and archaeologists as they attempted to construct a unified understanding of the ancient world. Iran's medieval history has likewise preoccupied scholars who have long recognized the Iranian plateau as a cultural crossroad of the world's great civilizations. In more recent times, Iran has continued to demand the attention of observers when, for example, the revolution of 1978–9 dramatically burst onto the world stage, or more recently, when the Iranian democracy movement has come to once again challenge the status quo of the clerical regime. Iran's dominance in the Middle East has brought it into conflict with the United States and so it is the subject of almost daily coverage from reporters. Sympathetic observers of Iran—students, scholars, policy makers, journalists, and the educated public—tend to be perplexed and confused by this tangled web of historical development. Iran, as it appears to most observers, is a foreboding, menacing, and far away land with a history that is simply too difficult to fathom. This book is a guide to Iran's complex history. The book emphasizes the large-scale continuities of Iranian history while also describing the important patterns of transformation that have characterized Iran's past. Each of the articles focuses on a specific epoch of Iranian history and surveys the general political, social, cultural, and economic issues of that era.

Keywords: Iran, Iranian history, Middle East, United States, historical development, transformation, revolution

Bibliographic Information

Publisher:: Oxford University Press

Print Publication Date:: Feb 2012

ISBN:: 9780199732159

Published online:: Sep 2012

DOI:: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199732159.001.0001

Editor

Touraj Daryaee, editor
Touraj Daryaee is Howard C. Baskerville Professor in the History of Iran and the Persianate World and Associate Director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture at the University of California, Irvine. His previous books include Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, winner of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies book award.

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Front Matter
IntroductionTouraj Daryaee
The Iranian Plateau from Paleolithic Times to the Rise of the Achaemenid EmpireKamyar Abdi
The ElamitesDan Potts
Avestan SocietyProds Oktor Skjærvø
The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 bce)A. Shapur Shahbazi
Iran at the Time of Alexander the Great and the SeleucidsEvangelos Venetis
The Arsacid EmpireEdward Dąbrowa
The Sasanian Empire(224–651 ce)Touraj Daryaee
Iran in the Early Islamic PeriodMichael G. Morony
Medieval IranNeguin Yavari
The Mongols in IranGeorge E. Lane
Timurids and Turcomans: Transition and Flowering in the Fifteenth CenturyAli Anooshahr
The Safavids in Iranian History (1501–1722)Kathryn Babayan
The Afghan Interlude and the Zand and Afshar Dynasties (1722–95)Kamran Scot Aghaie
Qajar Iran (1795–1921)Mansoureh Ettehadieh Nezam-Mafi
The Pahlavi Era Iranian Modernity in Global ContextAfshin Matin-Asgari
Iran after Revolution (1979–2009)Maziar Behrooz
End Matter
- Ruling Dynasties of Iran: The relationship of each ruler to the previous one is noted in brackets.
- Index

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date: 25 May 2020

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The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History

Edited by Touraj Daryaee

Abstract

Bibliographic Information

Editor

Contents