Explores the influence of Iran's history, both religious and political, on the Iranian national identity and discusses the role of literary, religious, intellectual, and cultural movements of the past on Iranian civilization today.

Jemmah has always thought of herself as perfectly ordinary . . . until she faces extraordinary circumstances.When her mother, the Persian king's famous senior scribe, is kidnapped, Jemmah and her sister must sneak undetected into enemy territory to rescue her. But infiltrating their adversary's lands proves easier than escaping them. Fleeing through dangerous mountain passes, their survival depends on the skills of a stranger they free from prison:...

"A young girl grows up in a family uprooted by the terror of an Islamic Revolution, where her culture, her gender, and her education are in peril. For the curious and imaginative Moji, there is no better place to grow up than the lush garden of her grandparents in Tehran. However, as she sits with her sister underneath the grapevines, listening to their grandfather recount the enchanting stories of One Thousand and One Nights, revolution is brewing...

"The bestselling author of The Secretary tells the gripping story of the real roots of the Sunni-Shia conflict in Middle East in the 1979 Iran Revolution that changed the region forever"--

A scholarly chronicle describes how Persian invaders were defeated by Greek defenders in the Battle of Marathon, in an account that reveals how an alternate outcome would have posed historical consequences to western civilization.

A biography of one of the first liberals in the Middle East and a remarkable patriot who embodied his nation's struggle for freedom, which led to his untimely demise and resulted in the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

"The relationship between the Roman Empire and its rival, the Parthian-Persian Empire, has long been viewed as bloody, hostile, and destructive. In fact, the truth is more complex. For more than seven hundred years, the Romans lived side by side by their eastern neighbors, sometimes at war, more often at peace, almost always trading with each other to their mutual benefit. The Roman Empire was wealthier and larger than the Persian Empire and its predecessor,...