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Rating: 
Summary: A Comprehensive Survey
Review: Dr Ehsan Yarshater is one of the most prominant Iranologists of today. His efforts have lead to some of the most comprehensive works in this area and include the present work as well as Encyclopaedia Iranica now published in fascicles. The Cambridge History of Iran covers in its third volume that period of the Iranian history that begins with the fall of the Achaemenian Dynasty to the advent of Islam. Unlike the Achaemenian period or Islamic Iran, the sources of history are meagre for this period and much inference need to have been made in the construction of this important history especially as it pertaines to the Arsacede Dynasty. The local histories as they relate to the Arsacede period were forgotten in the early parts of the Islamic era and that which remains from the Sassanid era are the early Farsi and Arabic lierary works inspired by those of the Sassanids as well as religious texts preserved by the Zoroastrian communities in Iran and India. Other sources of this period include those written by other peoples mostly with political agendas against the Iranians they wrote about. The volume is unique in that it makes use of the primary sources. In particular the use of a Sassanid legal text is extremely valuable. However the volume also presents some fundamental mistakes in that in using some religious text in presents them as the state of knowledge in the Sassanid era. This is like presenting the Adam and Eve story as the state of scientific knowledge in Christian Europe today. Overall I give this volume four out of five.
Rating:
Summary: A Comprehensive Survey
Review: Dr Ehsan Yarshater is one of the most prominant Iranologists of today. His efforts have lead to some of the most comprehensive works in this area and include the present work as well as Encyclopaedia Iranica now published in fascicles. The Cambridge History of Iran covers in its third volume that period of the Iranian history that begins with the fall of the Achaemenian Dynasty to the advent of Islam. Unlike the Achaemenian period or Islamic Iran, the sources of history are meagre for this period and much inference need to have been made in the construction of this important history especially as it pertaines to the Arsacede Dynasty. The local histories as they relate to the Arsacede period were forgotten in the early parts of the Islamic era and that which remains from the Sassanid era are the early Farsi and Arabic lierary works inspired by those of the Sassanids as well as religious texts preserved by the Zoroastrian communities in Iran and India. Other sources of this period include those written by other peoples mostly with political agendas against the Iranians they wrote about. The volume is unique in that it makes use of the primary sources. In particular the use of a Sassanid legal text is extremely valuable. However the volume also presents some fundamental mistakes in that in using some religious text in presents them as the state of knowledge in the Sassanid era. This is like presenting the Adam and Eve story as the state of scientific knowledge in Christian Europe today. Overall I give this volume four out of five.
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