Ancient Persia in Western History

<i>Ancient Persia in Western History</i> 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.