ScopeBroad enough for its own sub-branch
AfterDestiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
Leads toThe Great Game
Lineage13 books back to the Big Bang
Persia and Iran represent at least two related gaps. The first concerns the Safavid Empire. I do not fully understand what it was, how it was governed, how it emerged from the post-Mongol world, or how it eventually evolved.
The second gap concerns modern Iran. I would like to understand the arc connecting the Great Game, foreign intervention, the construction of the modern Iranian state, and the country that exists today.
Claude’s take
Iran is its own civilization, distinct from the Arab and Turkish worlds around it, with no thread in the tree.
Candidate reading
- Iran: A Modern History — Abbas Amanat
- The Safavid World — Rudi Matthee (ed.)