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Shadows in the Desert: Persia at War is a 2007 book by historian and linguist Kaveh Farrokh and one of the definitive works in the field of Iranian history. It covers the history of early Iranian peoples as well as that of Iran from the Median Empire until the Islamic conquest of Persia.

Purpose

The purpose of the book, according to Farrokh, is to remind people in the west, where Iran is seen as part of the "Axis of Evil", of its unacknowledged and unknown cultural diversity. He also states:

In the West, we suffer from what I call "The Alexander Mystique". We still believe that the Persians were permanently defeated and superseded by the Greeks and Romans. This misconception is being exasperated by the slow replacement of Persian language and Iranian studies with Arabic at the university level. It’s happening here in a subtle way while in Iran there have been ideologues and theocrats who have been actively disparaging pre-Islamic Iran since the 1970s. Still, there is a growing interest within Iran, especially among the youth, in Iran’s ancient heritage.

Contents

The text outlines Persia’s contributions to world civilization in areas such as mythology, technology, sciences, literature, militaria, the arts, music, architecture, and garments, as well as giving a detailed description of Iran's ancient history. The book also includes many pictures of artifacts, maps, and soldiers, many of which are rare.

Structure

Shadows in the Desert: Persia at War is divided into three parts, each of which themselves contain several sections. It also contains an introduction and a chronology.

• Part 1: The Achaemenids
  • 1 Before the Achaemenids
  • 2 Cyrus the Great and the early Achaemenids
  • 3 Darius the Great
  • 4 Xerxes and Limits of Empire
  • 5 The Achaemenid Empire from Artaxerxes I to the rise of Macedon
  • 6 Darius III and the fall of the Empire

• Part 2: The Parthians
  • 7 The Seleucids and the rise of the Parthians
  • 8 Parthia challenges Rome
  • 9 Parthia from Mark Antony to the Alan invasions
  • 10 Emperor Trajan's bid to destroy Parthia
  • 11 The decline and fall of Parthia

• Part 3: The Sassanians
  • 12 The rise of the Sassanian Dynasty
  • 13 Shapur II: a new revival of Sassanian Persia
  • 14 The tumultuous Fifth Century
  • 15 The Kavad era
  • 16 Khosrow I, renaissance and revival
  • 17 The final glory and the decline of the Empire
  • 18 Downfall of the Sassanians and the Islamic conquests
  • 19 The legacy of Persia after the Islamic conquests

The book also contains a foreword by Richard Nelson Frye, titled "The Mighty Persian Warriors"

External links

• Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War on Amazon.com
• Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War on Osprey Publishing

References

1. Amapedia