Recommendations from our site
“Cook trained as a classicist and knows his classical sources really well but, at the same time, throughout the book he is doing things that no other ancient historian was doing at the time. He was using cuneiform evidence. He was looking at Persian art and Persian architecture. He had travelled to Iran. It is quite clear that he loved the place…if there’s a book I would like to reintroduce it’s this one. I would love to see it republished and remarketed to get the kudos I think it deserves. I give my students sections of it to read because it’s a very straight, clear narrative history, which is what I like. It’s very readable and beautifully written, as well. He was in his prime in the 1950s and he has the beautiful rhetorical style of that era. It’s an elegant read.” Read more...
The best books on The Achaemenid Persian Empire
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Historian
