I avoid the journo turns historian books like [1], but I will have to check out [2]. When I took a clas in Shi'a history, Vali Nasr wrote a lot of material cit

I avoid the journo turns historian books like [1], but I will have to check out [2]. When I took a clas in Shi'a history, Vali Nasr wrote a lot of material cited in it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vali_Nasr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vali_Nasr I am never quite sure if I like him, because of his seemingly packaged for Western consumption views of Iran in his books. But then again, I am hardly an expert, and hardly Iranian. I just think Iran transitioned in and out of phases, and its interaction culturally with the Abbasid Empire at one point and wars fought in the region makes me see them differently. My interpretation is probably just biased.