11 ms·

The modern-day tensions are frustrating for many reasons. I always feel like Persia is an under-discussed historical civilization in pop culture, and I think th

by bbctol 10y ago

The modern-day tensions are frustrating for many reasons. I always feel like Persia is an under-discussed historical civilization in pop culture, and I think that's due to modern perceptions, too much baggage associated with the region. I might be imagining it, but when people talk about the great empires, it's always Rome, Egypt, China, the Mongols... the first Persian empire controlled up to half the world's population at its height, and is one of the really fundamental civilizations of human history.

Retric 10y ago
I think your population estimate is far from accurate the Americas had a large population during that time period. Let alone most of Africa, China, etc. One major consideration many of the worlds population centers from that time period are now under the ocean.
- sampo 10y ago
  > many of the worlds population centers from that time period are now under the ocean Wikipedia lists the Persian Empire from 550 BC to 651 AD. What are the population centers from that time which are now under the ocean?
  - Retric 10y ago
    I was not clear. I don't mean that the sea levels rose during that time period. Rather they had been rising up to 8,000 years ago. Which exaggerates the exponential population growth. Recent estimates put world population around 300 million people in year 0. And then rapidly scale back 10,000 BC. However, estimates put the Aboriginal population at 300-750k before European colonization with a mostly hunter gather lifestyle on mostly marginal land. Which suggests possibly much higher global populations 10,000 years ago, and a higher global population around year 0 for the rest of the world. PS: New estimates also put native Hawaiian population at 700,000 before cook, though this includes some farming. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/18/398578801/it-took-two-centuries-but-the-native-hawaii-ans-has-finally-bounced-back http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/18/398578801/...
amirmansour 10y ago
I'm Persian, but I received most of my education in the U.S, and I cannot recall the Persian Empire ever getting mentioned in history classes. Literally, everything else around Iran was mentioned. History is written by the victors.
- DrScump 10y ago
  At a minimum, Persia's status as an ancient superpower tends to get a lot of mention in Western Civilization courses, as a frequent adversary of the Greek states if nothing else.
- akiselev 10y ago
  This really depends on your state and on how textbooks are chosen. My middle school (California pre-CORE) petitioned the State Board of Education and was allowed to use a previously unapproved world history textbook that gave equal coverage to the Persian Empire up to the point we stopped in class. World history in my high school also devoted many chapters to it as did US history, although much less for the latter. (We covered each chapter linearly until we ran out of time in the school year but I dont know if thats what most schools do) For better or worse, state and local governments have a lot of influence on the textbooks and curriculum. Unfortunately cost seems to be the main driving factor for most textbook selections which means that only the bare minimum beyond western historical canon is covered.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  History is written by the historians we choose to read. I learned the name of many Persian cities from the first few centuries AD by reading Gibbon on how Justin the Apostate got himself (and many others) killed trying to conquer Persia. The contest which the west "won" is to have its own historians read. But (unlike India) Persia seems to have a well recorded history which we could be studying better. BTW: What is the attitude of the modern Iranian authorities to the history of pre-islamic Iran? I recently saw a news reel of nationalists celebrating at the tomb of one of the ancient kings -- but it said the government discourages that sort of thing.
  - 10y ago
s_q_b 10y ago
It may also have something to do with the fact that the Persian empires were a constant enemy of the progenitors of Western civilization: Greece and Rome. They were an existential threat to Greece, blocked the expansion of Rome, and obstructed the trade routes to China and India. The most significant mentions in the Western canon primarily have to do with the Greco-Persian Wars. As much of European understanding of that time period is filtered through Greek and Roman sources, we hear more about their conquests than their failures.
tn13 10y ago
True. But it has a lot to do with Islam which insists on keeping things exactly same as they were 1400 years ago and also insists on maintain distance from all other cultures. I wish all people people such as Muslims of middle east, Christians of Europe/USA, Hindus and other Pagans of east etc. would look a bit deeper into their history and realize how much similar we have been instead only focusing on relatively modern superficial religious differences.
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  You need to look deeper than that, I'm afraid. When you actually look closely, Islam is simply used as a tool by those in power to keep their citizens, who are usually followers of the religion, in check. A few popular examples: * Controlling the masses by claiming that the royal family shares the Prophet's bloodline, making the king literally of "superior" blood (Jordan). Just to clarify, this is absolute nonsense: the Prophet himself disallowed this. * Maintaining the most important spiritual site of the religion (Saudi Arabia). * Commanding the people to follow their leader because he is the religion's "chosen one" (Iran). Ironically, some dictatorships are now moving away from using Islam as a tool because it starts to overlap with current extremist ideologies, especially now that ISIS is a huge threat in the region. The focus is now on the "wisdom of the rulers" and their "generosity" towards their subjects. Examples of such countries include the UAE, Kuwait, and Egypt. In summary, it's not that Islam wants to keep things the same, but rather that the rulers who use Islam to keep themselves in power want to keep in all under control.
  - tn13 10y ago
    Islam works just as brutally even when it is not enforced by someone in power. For example in suburbans Muslim dominated parts of Indian cities, some streets of London etc. The only place where I see muslims being able to live peacefully and shed their Islamic beliefs is in USA where the law is applied uniformly and state does not feel the need to create a "safe space" for Muslims.
    - Cyph0n 10y ago
Cyph0n 10y ago
It's because of religion. The Christians "won" the war in the Middle East and Africa, and so they rewrote history to not focus as much on any of the great empires of the region. To add to your examples, the Ethiopian Empire and the Ottoman Empire are also constantly glossed over in history classes. The latter is basically summarized to: imperial concubines, Armenian genocide, fought with the Axis powers in WWI, lost WWI, joined the light by shedding the religion and culture we don't like. The 800 years before that are simply irrelevant, I guess? Let's not even mention the "gap" - the jump from the Greek/Romans to the Renaissance - in philosophy and science when Europe (i.e., Christians) was stuck in the dark ages. It's logical I guess; if the Christians weren't inventing shit, who else was? I am not against Christians or Christianity - on the contrary, I deeply respect the religion. But this is the unfortunate reality of how religion has functioned throughout history. And please don't attempt the "no religion = no problems" spiel.
- eveningcoffee 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Byzantine_inventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Byzantine_inventions
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    Wow, you've basically destroyed my entire argument! Jokes aside, for those of you who take things a tad too literally, what I mean is that Europe was in the dark ages relative to a number of civilizations outside of Europe. What an underwhelming list by the way. I expected more from the Byzantines to be honest.
    - eveningcoffee 10y ago
      In principle Byzantine was Europe at the time. More interestingly, Byzantine fell because of Christian invented artillery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orban
- qb45 10y ago
  > The latter is basically summarized to: imperial concubines, Armenian genocide, fought with the Axis powers in WWI, lost WWI, joined the light by shedding the religion and culture we don't like. The 800 years before that are simply irrelevant, I guess? Maybe in America, here in Eastern Europe everybody knows that the few preceding centuries was "bloody wars with those obnoxious Turks" ;) About their Middle Eastern and African conquest less is known but that's because we have had our own wars here in Europe and nobody cared, at least outside of the former colonial powers.
behnamoh 10y ago
You can see many tourists in Tehran and other cities of Iran. I don't think foreigners have much trouble traveling to this historical country anymore, esp. since most things (accommodation, transportation, food, and Persian souvenirs!) cost much less than they do in France, Italy, etc. I just don't understand the reason for all this hatred toward Iran and Persians. Not saying that Persian Empires were all nice to other nations, but seriously, remember what Mongols did to the middle Asia and you can understand the difference between a well-cultured society and a vicious, barbaric one... What did Persians do to deserve this much hatred? After all, they did not burn black people alive in Africa just like the Spanish did.
- senorjazz 10y ago
  >What did Persians do to deserve this much hatred? Not do as they were told and overthrew the western approved dictator (very basically).
- owenversteeg 10y ago
  Hmm. I agree that the hatred towards Iran and Persians is horrible, and I love the Iranian people. And I agree that everything is inexpensive, and that it is a fantastic place to travel to. I'll definitely be going back. But traveling there is actually somewhat difficult. Information online about the visa process is very hard to come by. Embassies will give you conflicting answers, and the Iranian embassy in the Hague hung up on me twice. I just came back from a visit to Iran and I have to say that seeing westerners is a rare sight, even in Tehran. Excluding Tehran Khomeini airport (where I saw maybe 10 western tourists), I can count the number of westerners I saw - the entire time I was there - on one hand. Iran definitely doesn't have "many tourists" - they have fewer than Kazakhstan according to official figures. And the majority of these tourists are Iranian in some way, which is probably because you need an invitation from an Iranian to enter the country, and because if you don't speak Persian (or have a Iranian friend to accompany you) you're SOL.
- DrScump 10y ago
  Well, from an American perspective, a "well-cultured society" does not invade another's embassy and take hostages. No matter how adversarial a relationship becomes, diplomats and embassy/consulate staffers have always been considered off limits, as long as they depart promptly and peaceably if diplomatic relations are severed (or individuals if declared persona non grata). Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, safety of diplomatic personnel was respected between adversaries This is a bit dated now (but I imagine that most of the travel barriers into Iran for Americans still apply), but the film "In the Footsteps of Marco Polo"[0] has an interesting firsthand account of two Americans seeking to retrace Marco Polo's route (including Iranian territory) by ground and sea travel alone. Their added adventure in seeking visas from IRI consulates makes for an interesting story in itself (to say any more would be a spoiler). It's well worth watching. For Americans: it often pops up on local PBS affiliates. [0] http://www.wliw.org/marcopolo/ http://www.wliw.org/marcopolo/ In general, those Americans who have toured Iran by whatever mechanism seem to report nothing but positive experiences with the Iranian people. (Rick Steves had a few segments on travel in Iran, for example). And again, see the Marco Polo film before I babble more and spoil it.
hansjorg 10y ago
> an under-discussed historical civilization in pop culture Considering the current cultural and political climate, that's probably for the best. Remember "300"? Even by Hollywood standards, that's a pretty blatant and awful piece of hate propaganda.
- astine 10y ago
  '300' is an exaggeration based on Herodotus' account of the events thousands of years ago. Nearly our entire understanding of the Persian wars comes from ancient Greek propaganda. A big part of the reason that the Achaemanid empire doesn't get the coverage that Western civilizations get is that we simply don't have the same quality of sources. The Greeks have folks like Herodotus and Thucydides who filled their histories so much detail and characterization that their stories are actually fun to read, whereas what we have from the Persians are mostly their official records which very dry by comparison. If you want to find out about the life Alcibiades, there are a ton of sources that give you all sorts of details about life and character of the man. If you want to find out about Cyrus the Great however, there is much less to go on.
gozur88 10y ago
>...it's always Rome, Egypt, China, the Mongols... Some of that boils down to how much we know about them. The Romans and the Chinese wrote everything down, and you can learn a lot about a people from diaries and bills of lading.
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
Gore Vidal wrote Creation as penned by the Persian ambassador in Athens in the 5th century BC. Highly amusing. Seen from that viewpoint, the Greeks were just a bunch of pirates and cattle raiders on the edges of real civilization.
Shorel 10y ago
This article shows a very good overview of the region in ancient times: https://medium.com/@writingben/when-roman-barbarians-met-the-asian-enlightenment-2be064d7af9b#.9gxsf6k82 https://medium.com/@writingben/when-roman-barbarians-met-the...
fusiongyro 10y ago
I'm reading _Religions of Iran_[1] right now and getting a lot out of it. I think the reason Iran doesn't get talked about is simply because it's too complex and it doesn't boil down nicely. In addition to Zoroastrianism (the surviving type seems to be an entirely different branch from the one that was at one point a state religion), there have been huge numbers of Jews, Christians and Buddhists(!), to say nothing about religions that appeared and disappeared (Mithraism, Manichaeism) and tiny religions that were once larger (Mandaenism) or little ethnic religions that still exist in small pockets (Yezidism, etc.) Sometimes, the rulers were religiously tolerant; other times they were not. Even when they were not, they document their difficulties homogenizing the population; Iranians are apparently private enough about these things that they can exist as undercurrents for hundreds of years or longer. This, on top of the fact that there have been several Iranian empires over the millenia. The author of the book is surprised it hasn't been studied in more depth, and I agree with him. It's a very interesting place. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Religions-Iran-Prehistory-Richard-Foltz/dp/1780743084/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479248244&sr=8-1&keywords=religions+of+iran https://www.amazon.com/Religions-Iran-Prehistory-Richard-Fol...

by bbctol 10y ago

Retric 10y ago

I think your population estimate is far from accurate the Americas had a large population during that time period. Let alone most of Africa, China, etc. One major consideration many of the worlds population centers from that time period are now under the ocean.

sampo 10y ago
> many of the worlds population centers from that time period are now under the ocean Wikipedia lists the Persian Empire from 550 BC to 651 AD. What are the population centers from that time which are now under the ocean?
- Retric 10y ago
  I was not clear. I don't mean that the sea levels rose during that time period. Rather they had been rising up to 8,000 years ago. Which exaggerates the exponential population growth. Recent estimates put world population around 300 million people in year 0. And then rapidly scale back 10,000 BC. However, estimates put the Aboriginal population at 300-750k before European colonization with a mostly hunter gather lifestyle on mostly marginal land. Which suggests possibly much higher global populations 10,000 years ago, and a higher global population around year 0 for the rest of the world. PS: New estimates also put native Hawaiian population at 700,000 before cook, though this includes some farming. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/18/398578801/it-took-two-centuries-but-the-native-hawaii-ans-has-finally-bounced-back http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/18/398578801/...

amirmansour 10y ago

I'm Persian, but I received most of my education in the U.S, and I cannot recall the Persian Empire ever getting mentioned in history classes. Literally, everything else around Iran was mentioned. History is written by the victors.

DrScump 10y ago
At a minimum, Persia's status as an ancient superpower tends to get a lot of mention in Western Civilization courses, as a frequent adversary of the Greek states if nothing else.
akiselev 10y ago
This really depends on your state and on how textbooks are chosen. My middle school (California pre-CORE) petitioned the State Board of Education and was allowed to use a previously unapproved world history textbook that gave equal coverage to the Persian Empire up to the point we stopped in class. World history in my high school also devoted many chapters to it as did US history, although much less for the latter. (We covered each chapter linearly until we ran out of time in the school year but I dont know if thats what most schools do) For better or worse, state and local governments have a lot of influence on the textbooks and curriculum. Unfortunately cost seems to be the main driving factor for most textbook selections which means that only the bare minimum beyond western historical canon is covered.
adrianratnapala 10y ago
History is written by the historians we choose to read. I learned the name of many Persian cities from the first few centuries AD by reading Gibbon on how Justin the Apostate got himself (and many others) killed trying to conquer Persia. The contest which the west "won" is to have its own historians read. But (unlike India) Persia seems to have a well recorded history which we could be studying better. BTW: What is the attitude of the modern Iranian authorities to the history of pre-islamic Iran? I recently saw a news reel of nationalists celebrating at the tomb of one of the ancient kings -- but it said the government discourages that sort of thing.
- 10y ago

s_q_b 10y ago

It may also have something to do with the fact that the Persian empires were a constant enemy of the progenitors of Western civilization: Greece and Rome. They were an existential threat to Greece, blocked the expansion of Rome, and obstructed the trade routes to China and India. The most significant mentions in the Western canon primarily have to do with the Greco-Persian Wars. As much of European understanding of that time period is filtered through Greek and Roman sources, we hear more about their conquests than their failures.

tn13 10y ago

True. But it has a lot to do with Islam which insists on keeping things exactly same as they were 1400 years ago and also insists on maintain distance from all other cultures. I wish all people people such as Muslims of middle east, Christians of Europe/USA, Hindus and other Pagans of east etc. would look a bit deeper into their history and realize how much similar we have been instead only focusing on relatively modern superficial religious differences.

Cyph0n 10y ago
You need to look deeper than that, I'm afraid. When you actually look closely, Islam is simply used as a tool by those in power to keep their citizens, who are usually followers of the religion, in check. A few popular examples: * Controlling the masses by claiming that the royal family shares the Prophet's bloodline, making the king literally of "superior" blood (Jordan). Just to clarify, this is absolute nonsense: the Prophet himself disallowed this. * Maintaining the most important spiritual site of the religion (Saudi Arabia). * Commanding the people to follow their leader because he is the religion's "chosen one" (Iran). Ironically, some dictatorships are now moving away from using Islam as a tool because it starts to overlap with current extremist ideologies, especially now that ISIS is a huge threat in the region. The focus is now on the "wisdom of the rulers" and their "generosity" towards their subjects. Examples of such countries include the UAE, Kuwait, and Egypt. In summary, it's not that Islam wants to keep things the same, but rather that the rulers who use Islam to keep themselves in power want to keep in all under control.
- tn13 10y ago
  Islam works just as brutally even when it is not enforced by someone in power. For example in suburbans Muslim dominated parts of Indian cities, some streets of London etc. The only place where I see muslims being able to live peacefully and shed their Islamic beliefs is in USA where the law is applied uniformly and state does not feel the need to create a "safe space" for Muslims.
  - Cyph0n 10y ago

Cyph0n 10y ago

It's because of religion. The Christians "won" the war in the Middle East and Africa, and so they rewrote history to not focus as much on any of the great empires of the region. To add to your examples, the Ethiopian Empire and the Ottoman Empire are also constantly glossed over in history classes. The latter is basically summarized to: imperial concubines, Armenian genocide, fought with the Axis powers in WWI, lost WWI, joined the light by shedding the religion and culture we don't like. The 800 years before that are simply irrelevant, I guess? Let's not even mention the "gap" - the jump from the Greek/Romans to the Renaissance - in philosophy and science when Europe (i.e., Christians) was stuck in the dark ages. It's logical I guess; if the Christians weren't inventing shit, who else was? I am not against Christians or Christianity - on the contrary, I deeply respect the religion. But this is the unfortunate reality of how religion has functioned throughout history. And please don't attempt the "no religion = no problems" spiel.

eveningcoffee 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Byzantine_inventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Byzantine_inventions
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  Wow, you've basically destroyed my entire argument! Jokes aside, for those of you who take things a tad too literally, what I mean is that Europe was in the dark ages relative to a number of civilizations outside of Europe. What an underwhelming list by the way. I expected more from the Byzantines to be honest.
  - eveningcoffee 10y ago
    In principle Byzantine was Europe at the time. More interestingly, Byzantine fell because of Christian invented artillery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orban
qb45 10y ago
> The latter is basically summarized to: imperial concubines, Armenian genocide, fought with the Axis powers in WWI, lost WWI, joined the light by shedding the religion and culture we don't like. The 800 years before that are simply irrelevant, I guess? Maybe in America, here in Eastern Europe everybody knows that the few preceding centuries was "bloody wars with those obnoxious Turks" ;) About their Middle Eastern and African conquest less is known but that's because we have had our own wars here in Europe and nobody cared, at least outside of the former colonial powers.

behnamoh 10y ago

You can see many tourists in Tehran and other cities of Iran. I don't think foreigners have much trouble traveling to this historical country anymore, esp. since most things (accommodation, transportation, food, and Persian souvenirs!) cost much less than they do in France, Italy, etc. I just don't understand the reason for all this hatred toward Iran and Persians. Not saying that Persian Empires were all nice to other nations, but seriously, remember what Mongols did to the middle Asia and you can understand the difference between a well-cultured society and a vicious, barbaric one... What did Persians do to deserve this much hatred? After all, they did not burn black people alive in Africa just like the Spanish did.

senorjazz 10y ago
>What did Persians do to deserve this much hatred? Not do as they were told and overthrew the western approved dictator (very basically).
owenversteeg 10y ago
Hmm. I agree that the hatred towards Iran and Persians is horrible, and I love the Iranian people. And I agree that everything is inexpensive, and that it is a fantastic place to travel to. I'll definitely be going back. But traveling there is actually somewhat difficult. Information online about the visa process is very hard to come by. Embassies will give you conflicting answers, and the Iranian embassy in the Hague hung up on me twice. I just came back from a visit to Iran and I have to say that seeing westerners is a rare sight, even in Tehran. Excluding Tehran Khomeini airport (where I saw maybe 10 western tourists), I can count the number of westerners I saw - the entire time I was there - on one hand. Iran definitely doesn't have "many tourists" - they have fewer than Kazakhstan according to official figures. And the majority of these tourists are Iranian in some way, which is probably because you need an invitation from an Iranian to enter the country, and because if you don't speak Persian (or have a Iranian friend to accompany you) you're SOL.
DrScump 10y ago
Well, from an American perspective, a "well-cultured society" does not invade another's embassy and take hostages. No matter how adversarial a relationship becomes, diplomats and embassy/consulate staffers have always been considered off limits, as long as they depart promptly and peaceably if diplomatic relations are severed (or individuals if declared persona non grata). Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, safety of diplomatic personnel was respected between adversaries This is a bit dated now (but I imagine that most of the travel barriers into Iran for Americans still apply), but the film "In the Footsteps of Marco Polo"[0] has an interesting firsthand account of two Americans seeking to retrace Marco Polo's route (including Iranian territory) by ground and sea travel alone. Their added adventure in seeking visas from IRI consulates makes for an interesting story in itself (to say any more would be a spoiler). It's well worth watching. For Americans: it often pops up on local PBS affiliates. [0] http://www.wliw.org/marcopolo/ http://www.wliw.org/marcopolo/ In general, those Americans who have toured Iran by whatever mechanism seem to report nothing but positive experiences with the Iranian people. (Rick Steves had a few segments on travel in Iran, for example). And again, see the Marco Polo film before I babble more and spoil it.

hansjorg 10y ago

> an under-discussed historical civilization in pop culture Considering the current cultural and political climate, that's probably for the best. Remember "300"? Even by Hollywood standards, that's a pretty blatant and awful piece of hate propaganda.

astine 10y ago
'300' is an exaggeration based on Herodotus' account of the events thousands of years ago. Nearly our entire understanding of the Persian wars comes from ancient Greek propaganda. A big part of the reason that the Achaemanid empire doesn't get the coverage that Western civilizations get is that we simply don't have the same quality of sources. The Greeks have folks like Herodotus and Thucydides who filled their histories so much detail and characterization that their stories are actually fun to read, whereas what we have from the Persians are mostly their official records which very dry by comparison. If you want to find out about the life Alcibiades, there are a ton of sources that give you all sorts of details about life and character of the man. If you want to find out about Cyrus the Great however, there is much less to go on.

gozur88 10y ago

>...it's always Rome, Egypt, China, the Mongols... Some of that boils down to how much we know about them. The Romans and the Chinese wrote everything down, and you can learn a lot about a people from diaries and bills of lading.

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago

Gore Vidal wrote Creation as penned by the Persian ambassador in Athens in the 5th century BC. Highly amusing. Seen from that viewpoint, the Greeks were just a bunch of pirates and cattle raiders on the edges of real civilization.

Shorel 10y ago

This article shows a very good overview of the region in ancient times: https://medium.com/@writingben/when-roman-barbarians-met-the-asian-enlightenment-2be064d7af9b#.9gxsf6k82 https://medium.com/@writingben/when-roman-barbarians-met-the...

fusiongyro 10y ago

I'm reading _Religions of Iran_[1] right now and getting a lot out of it. I think the reason Iran doesn't get talked about is simply because it's too complex and it doesn't boil down nicely. In addition to Zoroastrianism (the surviving type seems to be an entirely different branch from the one that was at one point a state religion), there have been huge numbers of Jews, Christians and Buddhists(!), to say nothing about religions that appeared and disappeared (Mithraism, Manichaeism) and tiny religions that were once larger (Mandaenism) or little ethnic religions that still exist in small pockets (Yezidism, etc.) Sometimes, the rulers were religiously tolerant; other times they were not. Even when they were not, they document their difficulties homogenizing the population; Iranians are apparently private enough about these things that they can exist as undercurrents for hundreds of years or longer. This, on top of the fact that there have been several Iranian empires over the millenia. The author of the book is surprised it hasn't been studied in more depth, and I agree with him. It's a very interesting place. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Religions-Iran-Prehistory-Richard-Foltz/dp/1780743084/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479248244&sr=8-1&keywords=religions+of+iran https://www.amazon.com/Religions-Iran-Prehistory-Richard-Fol...