Persia has always attracted the ambitions of the Eastern and Western worlds for over 2,500 years. It has been both a meeting-place for ideas and a battlegraound for many races during its long and turbulent history. A succession of invaders came --among them Alexander of Macedonia, the Arabs who brought with them a new God, and the Mongols, whose destructive force was personified by their savage leader, Chingis Khan.
Before these invasions the first Persian empire under Cyrus the Great transformed the scale on which societies were organized, and reconciled many peoples under one rule. In the centuries which followed the Persians struggled to preserve their identity; indeed, each invasion was succeeded by a remarkable cultural flowering of an essentially Persian character, manifested in the poetry of Firdowsi, the buildings of the Seljuks, the miniature paintings of the Timurids, and the mosques of the Safavids.
Introduction His Destined Hour Cyrus, Darius, and Glory Defeat makes us invincible Drown him, even if I drown too!
Title: Fall of the Peacock Throne Author: William H. Forbis Imprint: New York, Harper & Row, 1980
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