Iran: Empire of Mind- Michael Axworthy
**1/2/***** History
Iran: Empire of Mind
Michael Axworthy
Think Persia and mind conjures up
images of Nadir Shah, Omar Khayyam, Ayatollah Khomeini and latter’s fatwa
against Salman Rushdie. Few of us are aware that Islamic conquest of Persia (modern
day Iran) is a relatively recent event in the long history of this ancient land
which is the birthplace of probably the oldest religion of the world,
Zoroastrianism. In sixth century BC Achaemenid empire was the largest empire
outside china. Its boundaries stretched from Egypt and Greece in east to the
eastern border of present-day Tajikistan and Afghanistan in the west.
Axworthy has done a good job in
presenting this panorama of Persian history in a concise, single volume. He
talks of culture, religion, emperors, poets and writers who inhabited this
great country and enriched this land for so long. He is obviously in love with
Persian poetry on which he gives a long disquisition which seems a little out
of place and oversized in the context of this book. Surprisingly he does not
mention the mass exodus of Zoroastrians to India. Is this not a historical
fact? He devotes more space to the recent Iranian history; about 1/3rd
of the book deals with the last two centuries. But he provides a clear analysis
of this tumultuous period in Iran’s history. This was the era when Iran was
turned into a playground for British and Russian diplomacy-another arena for the
‘Great Game’ shenanigans- when the old monarchies collapsed and were replaced
by the nationalist governments, when the
Iranian intelligentsia awoke to the western ideas of liberty and freedom, when the
influence of USA in Iran rose and then waned with the emergence of Ayatollah
Khomeini, ultimately culminating in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and
establishment of a theocratic state in Iran. Axworthy is censorious of British,
Russian and American interference in Iranian affairs and reserves his harshest
criticism for the British.
History when told as a story has
a charm and is entertaining. Too scholarly a presentation may repel an amateur
fan of history but if one perseveres with the endeavour, he is awarded by a
smug satisfaction of having read a work of erudition. Axworthy’s history of
Iran does not belong to either of these categories. The book gives a fleeting
impression of lacking in depth.
It can be an introductory volume
for a dilettante fan of Persian history and would prod him to read further.
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