Ancient Persia in Western History: Hellenism and the Representation of the Achaemenid Empire

Author/Contributor(s):	Samiei, Sasan
Publisher:	I. B. Tauris & Company
Date:	07/24/2014
Binding:	Hardcover
Condition:	NEW

Ancient Persia in Western History is a measured rejoinder to the dominant narrative that considers the Graeco-Persian Wars to be merely the first round of an oft-repeated battle between the despotic 'East' and the broadly enlightened 'West'. Sasan Samiei analyses the historiography which has skewed our understanding of this crucial era - contrasting the work of Edward Gibbon and Goethe, which venerated Classicism and Hellenistic history, with later writers such as John Linton Myres. Finally, Samiei explores the cross-cultural encounters which constituted the Achaemenid period itself, and repositions it as essential to the history of Europe, Asia and the Middle East.