A History of Iran

Empire of the Mind

By: Michael Axworthy

Narrated by: Peter Ganim

Although frequently vilified, Iran is a nation of great intellectual variety and depth, and one of the oldest continuing civilizations in the world. Its political impact has been tremendous, not only on its neighbors in the Middle East but also throughout the world. From the time of the prophet Zoroaster, to the powerful ancient Persian Empires, to the revolution of 1979, the hostage crisis, and the current standoff over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Michael Axworthy vividly depicts the nation’s rich history. He explains clearly and carefully both the complex succession of dynasties that ruled ancient Iran and the surprising ethnic diversity of the modern country, held together by a common culture. With Iran again the focus of the world’s attention, A History of Iran is an essential guide to understanding this volatile nation.

©2008 Michael Axworthy (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Awesome read

Very insightful great historical record from start to present. No disappointments here. Especially enjoyed the account of transition from Zoroastrianism to Islam

a complete and detailed history of Iran

a complete and detailed history of Iran. ... well explained and analyzed, and well narrated

A Single Thread Through All Of History

So often, histories of Middle Eastern nations trace back only as far as the prophet Muhammad. It's amazing to see how one country has evolved through countless dynasties, invasions and religious conversions. I especially liked hearing about how artists in different periods reacted to these events.

Weak close

Biased toward the theocracy at the end. A grater focus on pre-twentieth century history wouls have been uaeful.

well balanced overview of Iranian history

Good overview of Iran from its ancient history to the Green Revolution. The author goes beyond discussing historical events and gives particular interest to Iranian poetry, minorities in Iran, and the history of US involvement in Iran.

One of the best book in covering Iran histoy

Not only it covet the history, it also provide I formation on the intellectual tradition, the Shia Islam and the impact of farsi as a language of literature.

Good book, bad narration

The story and history is really interesting. Unfortunately, the narrator doesn't speak the language, so the accent and pronunciation were hard to bear.

An amazing intro to Iran

I absolutely love this book and I’m very grateful to have read it. Even I as an Iranian do not know some things about my own culture and I’m very grateful that I got a non-biased point of view on the history of Iran thank you Michael Axworthy.

Read by an AI

The narrator sounded like an AI voice. There was no feeling or inflection in his voice. I know this is a history book, but give me some kind of modulation in the voice. The subject was very well covered. Most of the time poetry does not interest me. In this book, however, I was facinated by its affect on the history of Iran and prehaps motivated to read some.

Lazy Narration

It's a 4 star book. Narration was great as far as voice acting is concerned, but the narrator kept on unnecessarily and even pretentiously trying to pull off an "authentic" pronunciation when uttering an Iranian word or name, while having no idea what the Persian language sounds like. I'll go over a few of the many:

1) He insistently over-pronounced every 'h' consonant as in an Arabic 'hard h', while anyone having picked up a rudimentary sense of Persian phonetics from having heard a conversation or two would know that it doesn't have a hard h.

2) The familiar French loan word "montage" (pronounced "montaazh" in Persian) was pronounced "montazeh", obviously confusing the 'zh' consonant with a distinct 'z' and 'h'.

3) Even recently prominent proper names (like "Ahmadinejad") regularly featured in the news were mispronounced.

This is not a librivox recording that you'd do for free as a hobby. You are paid for this and should act professionally and responsibly. Put in some effort, do your homework.