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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 We still believe that the Persians were permanently defeated and superseded by the Greeks and Romans.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

It is the first user-friendly textbook that outlines the three major empires of Persia before Islam. The book also contains a very large number of high-quality and rare photographs. In contrast to the few textbooks of ancient Persia published in the west, which focus almost exclusively on historical events, Shadows in he Desert tabulates, for the first time, the range of contributions made by the Iranian peoples in the fields of human rights, arts, architecture, technology, learning, administration, mythology, theology, heavy cavalry (and the associated Pahlavi culture of chivalry), communications, and commerce.

Neutrality

Original Greco-Roman, Arabo-Islamic, Armenian, and Chinese, along with others, sources are consulted in conjunction with Iranian ones to provide the reader with a non-partisan and apolitical view into Iran’s pre-Islamic past. Despite his Iranian background, the author is able to provide a neutral view of Persia’s history, one that includes the weaknesses of Persia before the arrival of Islam. Mention is made for example, of the inequitable distribution of wealth seen between the nobility and the Magi on the one hand versus the peasant and ordinary populations on the other – and the historical consequences of these social dynamics.

New research

The author also presents important research findings that have, until now, been confined to a limited number of scholars. These include:

1. Discoveries made in the origins of the original proto Indo-Europeans and their relationship to the invention of farming in what is now northern Iraq, northwest Iran, and eastern Anatolia. Authors cited by Farrokh include Colin Renfrew, Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, and V.V. Ivanov.
2. The invention of horseback riding in the Ukraine, the relationship of this to the rise of the Kurgans or the “Aryans” of history. Farrokh cites the research of D.W. Anthony, D. Telegin, and D. Brown and their research into Ukraine’s heritage of horseback riding.
3. The research of Italian researcher Nik Spatari, whose works remain confined to Italian scholarship. Spatari has tabulated the impact of the architecture of pre-Islamic Persia upon Greece and Rome. Farrokh has cited Spatari’s findings for the first time in English-language publications.

"The Alexander Mystique"

"The Alexander Mystique", which is presented in the final chapter of the book, is the notion that the Iranians were permanently defeated and superseded by the Greeks, Alexander the Great in particular, and the Romans. This has led to the ignorance in much of western academia as to how and why the post-Alexandrian Seleucids were overthrown by the second empire of Persia, the Parthians. Even less acknowledged, as a consequence of the Alexander Mystique, are the military defeats suffered by Roman armies under the leadership of historical figures such as Mark Antony, Marcus Licinius Crassus, Valerian, and Julian the Apostate.

Structure

Shadows in the Desert: Persia at War is divided into three parts, each of which contain several sections.

• Foreword: The Mighty Persian Warriors by Richard Nelson Frye
• Introduction: Persia or Iran?
• 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
• Endnotes
• Select bibliography
• Index

Recognition

Farrokh’s book has received much attention in western media and academic circles. In contrast to previous books on pre-Islamic Persia, Shadows in the Desert has been very well-received by readers in the west. Farrokh has been interviewed on a number of media outlets such as The Leonard Lopate Show, We Talk Back, and The Tommy Schnurmacher Show.

External links

• Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War at Osprey Publishing

References

1. Amapedia
2. The Leonard Lopate Show of New York Public Radio, WYNC FM 93.9, August 20, 2007
3. We Talk Back of Louisiana and Mississippi, KMLB-AM 1440, August 11, 2007
4. The Tommy Schnurmacher Show in Montreal, Canada, CJAD AM 800, August 6, 2007

• Articles with a promotional tone from August 2007
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• History books