Empires Of Ancient Persia (Great Empires Of The Past), by Michael Burgan

Whether or not this is the author’s intention, this book is basically a juvenile version of the excellent work Shadows In The Desert, a book which this one cites on numerous occasions. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as Shadows In The Desert is a wonderful account of the Persian empires of antiquity. Yet basing oneself so heavily on another account (albeit one that the intended audience of this book is not likely to be familiar with) does have its limitations, and that is the way that this book essentially focuses on three blocks of historical time that are based on the period when various Persian empires ruled. So it is that the book focuses first on the period of the Persian Empire of the Achaemenids, then the Parthian empire of the Arcasids, and finally the Sassanid Empire, whose sudden and calamitous fall in the 7th century marks for the Persian world the end of antiquity as much as the 5th century is taken to be the beginning of Late Antiquity for the Western Roman world. This structure means that the historical narrative takes a rather abrupt end after a period of great success for Persia in their wars against the Byzantine Empire, where it would be centuries until Persia reached the same levels of unity and strength again in the early modern period under the Safavids, and also means that the period of Greek domination is given rather brief coverage, while the period of the Persians before the rise of Cyrus the Great is clouded in mystery and also not given much detail.

This particular book is a short on at a bit more than 100 pages in length, and it is divided into two parts and six chapters. After a surprisingly long introduction, the first part of the book examines the history of the ancient Persian empires (I), with chapters on the First Persian Empire (1), the Persian empire at its peak (2), as well as the latter Persian empires (3). The second part of the book then discusses what we know about society and culture in the Persian empires of antiquity (II), with chapters on politics and society in the Persian empires (4), living and working in the Persian empires (5), and Persian art, science, and culture (6). The book then ends with an epilogue about Arab domination, a timeline, glossary, bibliography, further resources, picture credits, an index, and information about the author.

Despite the fact that the book is definitely focused on those areas and those aspects where a historical or archaeological record survives, this is by no means a bad thing, but instead is probably a necessary thing. As far as world empires are concerned, Persia’s long history of imperial rule during antiquity, with three different empires that all proved themselves capable of defending Persia’s borders against serious opposition for centuries apiece, and occasionally projecting Persian power well into neighboring regions–all the way to Greece and Libya, the Indus River valley, and well into Central Asia and Arabia down to Yemen–deserves far greater attention than it often receives. If recent geopolitical trends have made it worthwhile for China and India to have their imperial histories given positive re-examinations, then Persia’s imperial greatness over such a long period of time is worthy of some reconsideration as well, especially to point out the difficulties that a regime has in ensuring unity over the Persian core and the vulnerability to invasion that Iran has faced throughout history that has tended to require a strong degree of military strength that must be able to counter both the infantry-heavy nations to the West and the mobile nomads of Central Asia, by no means an easy feat. This book will hopefully give young readers the chance to recognize and appreciate the achievement of three different ancient regimes in building an empire out of the complex human population of Iran that by and large remain present in the region to this day.