Download or read book Iranshahr and the Downfall of the Sassanid Dynasty written by Shahin Nezhad and published by Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH. This book was released on 2023-02-15 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sassanid Persia (224-651 CE) has received increasing attention in both Western and domestic scholarship, not to mention within Iranians in general, particularly in the last three decades. The 1979 Islamic Revolution and the subsequent establishment of the theoretic-clerical regime, the apparent failure of its ideologues in their attempt to reinvent an Irano-Islamic identity based on Twelver Shia myth, and the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) were all key stimuli that have contributed to this increased attention towards the revival of a none-Islamic historicity. The present work sheds light on some significant sociopolitical and cultural aspects which played decisive roles in the collapse of the Sasanian Empire, a world's antique power, whose decline--with on exaggeration--rewrote the history of the three Asian, European and African continents. The authors meticulously describe, analyze and evaluate all the major historical events at the eve of the Arabo-Islamic invasions whose prediction, and subsequently underestimation by and rivalry within the Sasanian nobility put a definite end to the last Iranian pre-Islamic monarchy. The reader hence, by studying this book, may reconsider the downfall of Sasanians and the rise of the Islamic Caliphate to be a mere unexpected event; a cliche which still dominates within majority of scholars and those interested in the Middle East and Iranian Studies looking at Sasanians' decline as an incomprehensible surprise.

Download or read book Witnesses to a World Crisis written by James Howard-Johnston and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Howard-Johnston provides a sweeping and highly readable account of probably the most dramatic single episode in world history - the emergence of a new religion (Islam), the destruction of two established great powers (Roman and Iranian), and the creation of a new world empire by the Arabs, all in the space of not much more than a generation (610-52 AD). Warfare looms large, especially where operations can be followed in some detail, as in Iraq 636-40, in Egypt 641-2 and in the long-drawn out battle for the Mediterranean (649-98). As the first history of the formative phase of Islam to be grounded in the important non-Islamic as well as Islamic sources Witnesses to a World Crisis is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand Islam as a religion and political force, the modern Middle East, and the jihadist impulse, which is as evident today as it was in the seventh century.

Download or read book The Tragedy of Empire written by Michael Kulikowski and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping political history of the turbulent two centuries that led to the demise of the Roman Empire. The Tragedy of Empire begins in the late fourth century with the reign of Julian, the last non-Christian Roman emperor, and takes readers to the final years of the Western Roman Empire at the end of the sixth century. One hundred years before Julian’s rule, Emperor Diocletian had resolved that an empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, and from the Rhine and Tyne to the Sahara, could not effectively be governed by one man. He had devised a system of governance, called the tetrarchy by modern scholars, to respond to the vastness of the empire, its new rivals, and the changing face of its citizenry. Powerful enemies like the barbarian coalitions of the Franks and the Alamanni threatened the imperial frontiers. The new Sasanian dynasty had come into power in Persia. This was the political climate of the Roman world that Julian inherited. Kulikowski traces two hundred years of Roman history during which the Western Empire ceased to exist while the Eastern Empire remained politically strong and culturally vibrant. The changing structure of imperial rule, the rise of new elites, foreign invasions, the erosion of Roman and Greek religions, and the establishment of Christianity as the state religion mark these last two centuries of the Empire.

Download or read book Imperial Tragedy written by Michael Kulikowski and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, Rome was one of the world's largest imperial powers, its influence spread across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle-East, its military force successfully fighting off attacks by the Parthians, Germans, Persians and Goths. Then came the definitive split, the Vandal sack of Rome, and the crumbling of the West from Empire into kingdoms first nominally under Imperial rule and then, one by one, beyond it. Imperial Tragedy tells the story of Rome's gradual collapse. Full of palace intrigue, religious conflicts and military history, as well as details of the shifts in social, religious and political structures, Imperial Tragedy contests the idea that Rome fell due to external invasions. Instead, it focuses on how the choices and conditions of those living within the empire led to its fall. For it was not a single catastrophic moment that broke the Empire but a creeping process; by the time people understood that Rome had fallen, the west of the Empire had long since broken the Imperial yoke.

Download or read book The War of the Three Gods written by Peter Crawford and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-16 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The War of the Three Gods is a military history of the Near and Middle East in the seventh century—with its chief focus on the reign of the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius (AD 610–641)—a pivotal and dramatic time in world history. The Eastern Roman Empire was brought to the very brink of extinction by the Sassanid Persians before Heraclius managed to inflict a crushing defeat on the Sassanids with a desperate, final gambit. His conquests were short-lived, however, for the newly converted adherents of Islam burst upon the region, administering the coup de grace to Sassanid power and laying siege to Constantinople itself, ushering in a new era. Peter Crawford skillfully narrates the three-way struggle between the Christian Roman, Zoroastrian Persian, and Islamic Arab empires, a period of conflict peopled with fascinating characters, including Heraclius, Khusro II, and the Prophet Muhammad himself. Many of the epic battles of the period—Nineveh, Yarmuk, Qadisiyyah and Nahavand—and sieges such as those of Jerusalem and Constantinople are described in as rich detail. The strategies and tactics of these very different armies are discussed and analyzed, while plentiful maps allow the reader to follow the events and varying fortunes of the contending empires. This is an exciting and important study of a conflict that reshaped the map of the world. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Download or read book Shi i Islam in Iranian Cinema written by Nacim Pak-Shiraz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 1999-07-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years there has been a remarkable surge in Iranian films expressing contentious issues which would otherwise be very difficult to discuss publicly inside the Islamic Republic of Iran - such as the role of clergy in Iranian society. Nacim Pak-Shiraz here highlights how many Iranian film directors concern themselves with the content of the religious and historical narratives of culture and society, sparking debate about the medium's compatibility or incongruity with religion and spirituality. She explores the various ways that Shi'i discourse emerges on screen, and offers groundbreaking insights into both the role of film in Iranian culture and society, and how it has become a medium for exploring what it means to be Iranian and Muslim after thirty years of Islamic rule. This is invaluable reading students and scholars of Film Studies and contemporary Iranian cinema, but also of the culture and identity of Iran more widely.

Download or read book Displaced Allegories written by Negar Mottahedeh and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2008-11-14 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iran’s film industry, in conforming to the Islamic Republic’s system of modesty, had to ensure that women on-screen were veiled from the view of men. This prevented Iranian filmmakers from making use of the desiring gaze, a staple cinematic system of looking. In Displaced Allegories Negar Mottahedeh shows that post-Revolutionary Iranian filmmakers were forced to create a new visual language for conveying meaning to audiences. She argues that the Iranian film industry found creative ground not in the negation of government regulations but in the camera’s adoption of the modest, averted gaze. In the process, the filmic techniques and cinematic technologies were gendered as feminine and the national cinema was produced as a woman’s cinema. Mottahedeh asserts that, in response to the prohibitions against the desiring look, a new narrative cinema emerged as the displaced allegory of the constraints on the post-Revolutionary Iranian film industry. Allegorical commentary was not developed in the explicit content of cinematic narratives but through formal innovations. Offering close readings of the work of the nationally popular and internationally renowned Iranian auteurs Bahram Bayza’i, Abbas Kiarostami, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Mottahedeh illuminates the formal codes and conventions of post-Revolutionary Iranian films. She insists that such analyses of cinema’s visual codes and conventions are crucial to the study of international film. As Mottahedeh points out, the discipline of film studies has traditionally seen film as a medium that communicates globally because of its dependence on a (Hollywood) visual language assumed to be universal and legible across national boundaries. Displaced Allegories demonstrates that visual language is not necessarily universal; it is sometimes deeply informed by national culture and politics.

Download or read book The Church of the East written by Christoph Baumer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-05 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The so-called 'Nestorian' Church (officially known as the Apostolic Assyrian Church of the East, with its See in Baghdad) was one of the most significant Christian communities to develop east of the Roman Empire. In its heyday the Church had 8 million adherents and stretched from the Mediterranean to China. Christoph Baumer is one of the very few Westerners to have visited many of the most important Assyrian sites and has written the only comprehensive history of the Church, which now fights for survival in its country of origin, Iraq, and is almost forgotten in the West. He narrates its rich and colorful trajectory, from its apostolic beginnings to the present day, and discusses the Church's theology, christology, and uniquely vigorous spirituality. He analyzes the Church's turbulent relationship with other Christian chuches and its dialogue with neighboring world religions such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Islam, Buddhism, and Taoism. Richly illustrated with maps and over 150 full-color photographs, the book will be essential reading for those interested in a fascinating, but neglected Christian community which has profoundly shaped the history of civilization in both East and West.

Download or read book Procopius of Caesarea The Persian Wars written by Geoffrey Greatrex and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-31 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Procopius was the major historian of the reign of Justinian and one of the most important historians of Late Antiquity. This is the first stand-alone English translation of his work Persian Wars. It offers a new translation, which has at its basis one published fifty years ago by Averil Cameron. The Persian Wars, despite the title, is a wide-ranging work that reports the history and geography not only of Mesopotamia and the Caucasus, but also of southern Arabia and Ethiopia, Iran and Central Asia, and Constantinople itself. This book is equipped with notes, maps and plans, an introduction, and a translation of a further Greek text, that of Nonnosus, which overlaps with Procopius'. It will be of benefit to specialists and the general reader alike.

Download or read book World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre written by Irving Brown (Consulting Bibliographer) and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An annotated world theatre bibliography documenting significant theatre materials published world wide since 1945, plus an index to key names throughout the six volumes of the series.

Download or read book A Companion to Ancient Epic written by John Miles Foley and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-11-03 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to Ancient Epic presents for the first time a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of ancient Near Eastern, Greek and Roman epic. It offers a multi-disciplinary discussion of both longstanding ideas and newer perspectives. A Companion to the Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman epic traditions Considers the interrelation between these different traditions Provides a balanced overview of longstanding ideas and newer perspectives in the study of epic Shows how scholarship over the last forty years has transformed the ways that we conceive of and understand the genre Covers recently introduced topics, such as the role of women, the history of reception, and comparison with living analogues from oral tradition The editor and contributors are leading scholars in the field Includes a detailed index of poems, poets, technical terms, and important figures and events

Download or read book Roman Emperor Zeno written by Peter Crawford and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Crawford examines the life and career of the fifth-century Roman emperor Zeno and the various problems he faced before and during his seventeen-year rule. Despite its length, his reign has hitherto been somewhat overlooked as being just a part of that gap between the Theodosian and Justinianic dynasties of the Eastern Roman Empire which is comparatively poorly furnished with historical sources. Reputedly brought in as a counter-balance to the generals who had dominated Constantinopolitan politics at the end of the Theodosian dynasty, the Isaurian Zeno quickly had to prove himself adept at dealing with the harsh realities of imperial power. Zeno's life and reign is littered with conflict and politicking with various groups - the enmity of both sides of his family; dealing with the fallout of the collapse of the Empire of Attila in Europe, especially the increasingly independent tribal groups established on the frontiers of, and even within, imperial territory; the end of the Western Empire; and the continuing religious strife within the Roman world. As a result, his reign was an eventful and significant one that deserves this long-overdue spotlight.

Download or read book The Plays and Films of Bahram Beyzaie written by Saeed Talajooy and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-01-25 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bahram Beyzaie is one of Iran's leading playwrights and auteur filmmakers. This book examines several of Beyzaie's films and plays and their preoccupation with the modalities and transformations of Iranian contemporary, historical and mythical identity from different perspectives. The chapters analyse Beyzaie's influential plays such as Arash and So Dies Pahlevan Akbar and his filmic magnum opuses such as The Crow, Bashu, the Little Stranger and Killing Mad Dogs from a range of critical perspectives including ecofeminist, sociopolitical, new-historicist, archetypal and psychoanalytical readings. They also explore Beyzaie's dialogue with filmic genres such as noir, different Iranian languages such as Gilaki, Iranian epics and ritual practices such as ta'ziyeh plays and javanmardi chivalry cults. Together, the chapters show how Beyzaie's works negotiate narratives of belonging and undermine the dominant exclusionist discourses in Iran, and how they use the resources of Iranian folk and performance traditions to comment on the position of women, children, intellectuals, and minorities in society.

Download or read book Sasanian Persia written by Touraj Daryaee and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-29 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of profound importance in late antiquity, the Sasanian Empire is virtually unknown today, except as a counterpoint to the Roman Empire. In this highly readable history, Touraj Daryaee fills a significant gap in our knowledge of world history. He examines the Sasanians' complex and colourful narrative and demonstrates their unique significance, not only for development of Iranian civilization but also for Roman and Islamic history. The Sasanians were the last of the ancient Persian dynasties and are best known as the pre-eminent practitioners of the Zoroastrian religion. Founded by Ardashir l in 224 CE, the Sasanian Empire was the dominant force in the Middle East for several centuries until its last king, Yazdgerd lll, was defeated by the Muslim Arabs in the seventh century. In this concise yet comprehensive book, Touraj Daryaee provides an unrivalled account of Sasanian Persia. Drawing on extensive new sources, he paints a vivid portrait of Sasanian life and unravels the divergent strands that contributed to the making of this great empire. This new edition includes updated economic and political histories as well as several inscriptions that have been found in recent years.

Download or read book Sasanian Iran 224 651 CE written by Touraj Daryaee and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History written by Touraj Daryaee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-16 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook is a current, comprehensive single-volume history of Iranian civilization. The authors, all leaders in their fields, emphasize the large-scale continuities of Iranian history while also describing the important patterns of transformation that have characterized Iran's past. Each of the chapters focuses on a specific epoch of Iranian history and surveys the general political, social, cultural, and economic issues of that era. The ancient period begins with chapters considering the anthropological evidence of the prehistoric era, through to the early settled civilizations of the Iranian plateau, and continuing to the rise of the ancient Persian empires. The medieval section first considers the Arab-Muslim conquest of the seventh century, and then moves on to discuss the growing Turkish influence filtering in from Central Asia beginning in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The last third of the book covers Iran in the modern era by considering the rise of the Safavid state and its accompanying policy of centralization, the introduction of Shi'ism, the problems of reform and modernization in the Qajar and Pahlavi periods, and the revolution of 1978-79 and its aftermath. The book is a collaborative exercise among scholars specializing in a variety of sub-fields, and across a number of disciplines, including history, art history, classics, literature, politics, and linguistics. Here, readers can find a reliable and accessible narrative that can serve as an authoritative guide to the field of Iranian studies.

Download or read book Colors of Enchantment written by Sherifa Zuhur and published by American Univ in Cairo Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this companion volume to the successful Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle East (AUC Press, 1998), historian and ethnomusicologist Sherifa Zuhur has once again commissioned and edited authoritative essays from noteworthy scholars from around the globe that explore the visual and performing arts in the Middle East. What differentiates this volume from its predecessor is its investigation of theater, from the early modern period to the contemporary. Topics include race and national identity in Egyptian theater, early writing in the Arab theater in North America, Persian-language theater from its origins through the twentieth century, Palestinian nationalist theater, and a survey of the work of noted Egyptian playwright Yusuf Idris. Other aspects of the arts are not neglected, of course, as further avenues of dance, music, and the visual arts are explored. Marked by interesting and fresh perspectives, Colors of Enchantment is another vital contribution to scholarship on the arts of the Middle East. Contributors: Najwa Adra, Wijdan Ali, Sami Asmar, Clarissa Burt, Michael Frishkopf, M. R. Ghanoonparvar, Tori Haring-Smith, Kathleen Hood, Deborah Kapchan, Neil van der Linden, Samia Mehrez, Mona Mikhail, Sami A. Ofeish, 'Ali Jihad Racy, Rashad Rida, Tonia Rifaey, Edward Said, Lori Anne Salem, Philip D. Schuyler, Selim Sednaoui, Reuven Snir, James Stone, Eve Troutt Powell, and Sherifa Zuhur.