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The truths about Iran; quite different truths from versions put forward by Washington, Tehran, and the media. Iran thundered onto the world stage in 1979 with an Islamic revolution that shook the world. Today that revolution has gone astray, a popular democracy movement boldly challenges authority, and young Iranians are more interested in moving to America than in chanting "Death to America." Afshin Molavi, born in Iran and fluent in Persian, traveled widely across his homeland, exploring the legacy of the Iranian revolution and probing the soul of Iran, a land with nearly three millennia of often-glorious history. Like a master Persian carpet maker, Molavi weaves together threads of rich historical insight, political analysis, cultural observation, and the daily realities of life in the Islamic republic to produce a colorful, intricate, and mesmerizing narrative. Originally published in hardcover under the title Persian Pilgrimages, this paperback edition is revised, with a new introduction and epilogue.
This book synthesizes urban design and urban regeneration by examining the revitalization of a number of historic urban quarters. Its focus is on quarters or areas where there is a significant number of historic buildings concentrated in a small area; with places and area-based approaches. Many cities have such quarters that confer on them a sense of place and identity through their historic continuity and cultural associations. The quarters are often an integral element of the city's image and identity. The lessons and observations from the experience of the revitalization of such historic urban quarters forms the core of this book with a number of case study examples from North America and Europe showing a variety of approaches to and outcomes of revitalization.
From one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient Greek art, a groundbreaking account of how Greek images were understood and used by other ancient peoples, from Britain to China In this book, acclaimed archaeologist and art historian John Boardman explores Greek art as a foreign art transmitted to the non-Greeks of antiquity—peoples who weren’t necessarily able to judge the meaning of Greek art and who may have regarded the Greeks themselves with great hostility. Boardman examines how and why the arts of the classical world traveled and to what effect, from Britain to China, from roughly the eighth century BCE to the early centuries CE. In some places, such as Italy, Greek images...
Ascending from obscurity and without dynastic credentials, Nadir Shah tried and failed to establish his right to rule the people of Iran from the 1720s until 1747. This biography of Nadir tells how Nadir Shah's novel strategies influenced successive rulers of Iran in their own defense of power.
The first kings of the Achaemenid Persian empire, Cyrus the Great and Darius,sought to devise for their capital cities new styles in monumental architecture and sculpture to express their imperial status and mastery of the known world. With no local tradition to guide designers, a homogeneous style was created from the example of the many new subjects - Ionian Greeks, Lydians, Mesopotamians, and Egyptians. This book traces these sources and explores the way that traditional Achaemenid motifs, if not styles, also permeated the empire. The Achaemenid Persian experiment was unique in antiquity, and it was successful for as long as the empire lasted. Even after Alexander the Great brought about its downfall, it continued to influence the arts from Greece to India. This is a record of the brilliant flowering of an artificial yet unified construct, unmatched in the art of the Old World.
First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) precipitated immense historical change in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. But the resonance his legend achieved over the next two millennia stretched even farther across foreign cultures, religious traditions, and distant nations. This engaging and handsomely illustrated book for the first time gathers together hundreds of the colorful Alexander legends that have been told and retold around the globe. Richard Stoneman, a foremost expert on the Alexander myths, introduces us first to the historical Alexander and then to the Alexander of legend, an unparalleled mythic icon who came to represent the heroic ideal in cultures from Egypt to Iceland, fr...
Over the decades, Anatolian metal artifacts have been the focus of extensive scientific analysis. Now fifteen years of field work, current surveys, excavations, and analytical programs regarding transformations in metallurgy in this highly metalliferous region have enabled Aslıhan Yener in Domestication of Metals to focus for the first time on the organization of production within a broader social context. In so doing, the author introduces convincing evidence for a revision of existing models concerning the metal industry. The volume locates a core of technological innovation in the highland zones, where critical resources are in close proximity to the developing polities in the fertile, agricultural lowlands. The Early Bronze Age tin mine, Kestel, and the contemporary workshop and habitation site of nearby Göltepe, illustrate an industrial complex specializing in the production of tin metal. New metallurgical data explain the organization and management of a range of interactive technologies in prehistoric states in Anatolia from 8000-2000 B.C.
Alexander the Great of Macedon was no stranger to controversy in his own time. Conqueror of the Greek states, of Egypt and of the Persian Empire as well as many of the principalities of the Indus Valley, he nevertheless became revered as well as vilified. Was he simply a destroyer of the ancient civilizations and religions of these regions, or was he a hero of the Persian dynasties and of Islam? The conflicting views that were taken of him in the Middle East in his own time and the centuries that followed are still reflected in the tensions that exist between east and west today. The story of Alexander became the subject of legend in the medieval west, but was perhaps even more pervasive in ...