Origins : Zoroaster, the Achaemenids, and the Greeks - The Iranian revival : Parthians and Sassanids - Islam and invasions : the Arabs, Turks and Mongols : the Iranian reconquest of Islam, the Sufis, and the poets - Shiism and the Safavids - The fall of the Safavids, Nader Shah, the eighteenth-century interregnum, and the early years of the Qajar dynasty - The crisis of the Qajar monarchy, the revolution of 1905-1911 and the accession of the Pahlavi dynasty - The Pahlavis, and the revolution of 1979 - Iran since the revolution : Islamic revival, war and confrontation - From Khatami to Ahmadinejad, and the Iranian predicament - Notes - Select Bibliography - Index