Persians Finally Get Their Due

Llewellyn-Jones, a director at the British Institute of Persian studies, documents the rise and fall of the Achaemenid empire in this immersive history. Contending that a reliance on Greek and Old Testament sources has skewed the popular understanding of ancient Persia, Llewellyn-Jones focuses on “genuine, indigenous” sources that have come to light in recent decades. Interwoven with the chronological history of the empire’s founding by Cyrus the Great in 550 BCE; its fight to hold on to power in modern-day Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Greece, and India under Darius the Great and his son, Xerxes I; and its conquest by Alexander the Great in 330 BCE are topic-based chapters covering bureaucracy, slavery, royal marriage and inheritance, court politics, religion, and other matters.