Customer Reviews

History of the Persian Empire (Phoenix Bks.)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
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While I'm sure that the information in "The History of the Persian Empire" must have been superceded to a degree in the 50 years since it has been published, and it is likely that Olmstead may have been overly sure of facts, this book is a pleasure to read and a mine of cultural food for thought. I fear the reviewer above who managed to finish the book knowing next to nothing about ancient Persia is saying more about herself than this book. I was chiefly interested in the religious and cultural aspects of the Persian period, rather than the military and political ones, and I have come away from this book considerably more enlightened than I was by Edwin Yamauchi's treatment of Persia. Olmstead is both a vivid and readable writer, witty, detailed and fair-minded. His treatment of the Zoroastrian religion was eye-opening for me, and the way he deals with Palestine and Egypt was also illuminating. I especially got a kick out of his paraphrase renditions of some ancient documents and inscriptions at a purely aesthetic, and somewhat humorous, level. I'm sure there's still more to know, but this is a terrific overview.

It is, of course, impossible to cram this much history into a single small volume and still keep it perfectly accessible to the beginning history reader, but this author makes a very creditable effort in that direction. The book is dense, chronologically, and must be supplemented with other sources for a comprehensive view of its subject material.

That said, the value for this reviewer was in the fresh viewpoint on events usually told from the Greek perspective, and provides a welcome supplement to ancient sources (Thucydides, Xenophon) and modern ones (Donald Kagan's astonishing four-book series) concerning the Peloponnesian War and the years surrounding it. One is sometimes left wondering, with all that Greek victory, how the Persians ended up in control of Ionia, and how the Greek colonies there ended up paying tribute to the Great King after all. This volume fills in much of the missing information - notably, that the Greeks were all too often venal, treacherous, and easily bought off by Persian gold and outmaneuvered by Persian diplomacy. How that was done is a little-told story, and is admirably related here.

The author's prose in this section is some of the best in the book - dry, witty, and unapologetic. Students of 5th- and 4th-century Mediterranean history will be well-served by tucking this little volume into their collections.

First things frist. The author's first name is Albert not Arthur. This is a great book if you are serious history reader or interested in Iran. It treats the origins of the Persian (Iranian) Empire founded by Cyrus the Great. Although published some five decades ago, it has much to offer.

Most have heard and studied the Greek and the Romans, but before Europe ruled the wrold, there were the Persians. The Medes and Persians survived the Empires of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, before granted their time in history. One of the most structured and orgainized empires of the ancient world, it had an impact on world history, Juduaism, and later Christdom. Alexander the Greek went to Hellenize the world and ended up being influenced by the Persian culture he conquered. Tremendous book of an interesting time of history.

This book is utterly remarkable. Well written and incredibly comprehensive iteration of the scope, flow and detail of the empire that was Persia, from early pre-Empire times to the Alexandrian conquest (and a bit beyond). It discusses legal, social, military, architectural, religious and business practices, inter-familial rivalries, conquests,etc., in remarkable detail, and it even puts Biblical history of the Jews in exile in context. It captures aspects of the ruling style and methods of the Mede and Persian rulers. It is simply a great and literally huge book, by a Professor whose depth of knowledge and love of his subject is inspiring, even several decades after his death.

The encyclical accounting of the Persian Empire. Olmstead was the first author to give an account of the Persians from their perspective. He begins well before Cyrus the Great and runs through the entire Achaemenid period recounting the conquest and administration of the empire until its demise by Alexander's onslaught. Olmstead goes into exceptional detail in giving accounts of the inscriptions and palace mural carvings at the ruins of Persepolis and other locales. His account of Zoroaster is also noteworthy from a liturgical perspective, though the dating of Zoroaster's life has changed since Olmstead passed away in 1945. Overall, a fantastic exposure to the Persian Empire. Best read in conjunction with one or two later works to optimally digest newer discoveries and conclusions.

One of Olmstead's favorite tools - and what makes this book difficult for me to read - is his near constant use of racial profiling to fill in information about peoples migrating into and inhabiting the Iranian plateau. Olmstead, in my opinion, has a strong bias in favor of northern European "races" over the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian "races." For example, the "early and inferior Eurafrican" (Olmstead, 3) lived in the Mediterranean region. This isn't a statement of political correctness, but more a critique of a lazy kind of thinking. Explanations of behavior and culture based on race really fall short of reality, in my mind.

Olmstead also did not seem to feel it was needed to included the dates of much of anything he wrote about. I constantly have to look at other sources or jump onto Wikipedia to find the date of something. This is a nuisance, because Olmstead jumps around quite a bit, so one cannot presume to be reading things in a chronological order. A good example in particular, his summary of ancient history in the books opening chapter jumprs around within 10 or so millenia, making it hard to understand what is happening at what time. While my history is better than your average person on the street, I don't know all dates of all events. That's why I'm reading the book!

Olmstead has a lively style, but wrote more than 70 years ago. It's hard to know if this work is reliable, especially because science has changed so much in 70 years and because shenanigans in Iran and around that region prevent new knowledge from emerging. I wouldn't recommend this book.

when the subject is a history, the ocidental culture should learn with this book of how much we own to the oriental culture. it is odd to know that the Persian comes from the same indo-european origins of Greeks and Romans. it is odd to know that all we know about geometry, astronomy, mathematics and finances were developed by Persians. the only flaw, if I can say, is that the author writes too much details about the buildings and too few to writes about events and persons who rise and fall the persian empire.

I have mixed feelings about this work. On the one hand, its a very crafty and entertaining, almost sprawling, history of the Persian Empire. Olmstead is carefully to use the (then newly-minted) archaeological findings and compare them with the existing counts of remnant written histories from the ancient world. On the other hand, the size of the work and the fact that it was organized post-mortem have resulted in a history that is rather disorganized and in some places unbalanced. I'd also like to note that this isn't exclusively a Persian history, as I was expecting. There's plenty in this work on contemporary developments in Egypt, Judah and Caria (and, of course, Greece). I would have like to see a more careful consideration of Persian society and culture, politics and daily life. There are also a lot of a lengthy, tedious quotations on things like astronomical measurements, which simply aren't interesting enough to hold the readers attention. It's a mixed bag, mostly because it's such a large bag, and I don't regret reading it.

Olmstead's book is now rather out of date, so should not be anyone's main source. Given the claim above that the "author" has posted a comment, it might be worth noting that Olmstead was dead before the book's initial publication.