A timely, valuable resource for those who want a deeper understanding of a troubled region.
A panoramic history of the Iranian people rediscovers their original sources of moral and political strength while dissecting the causes of their cultural decline.
Saney, an Iranian-born academic and lawyer with several titles under his belt, provides a sweeping history of Iran as a “tool to describe the cultural scene.” The first seven of 10 chapters exhaustively describe the arc of Iran’s development, from the rise of the Persian Empire and its ultimate decline through a dizzying succession of dynastic rulers. Not content to merely offer an empirical catalogue of events, Saney mines Iranian history for clues about its essential character, detailing the many accomplishments and contributions proffered to the world. Once a crucible of creative achievement in the region—the Athens of the Middle East—Iran was a center of innovation in architecture, music, literature and science. So what happened? Saney attaches Iran’s general descent to a gradual surrender of its own unique culture after languishing under a train of despotic Arab and Turkish rulers. The painful experience of tyranny broke the Iranian spirit, and the rise of an oppressive Islamic rule substituted a stultifying Muslim order for their indigenous Zoroastrianism. This shifted their cultural focus from “universal benevolence to sectarian prejudice,” “sexual equality to the subordination of women” and, even more fundamentally, from “cheerful vision to mournful existence.” Along the way, Saney also explains the extraordinary influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism and Christianity; their profound connection may be shocking to readers familiar only with the yawning chasms that divide the religions today. This impressively erudite study is saturated by scholarly detail, which could fatigue the amateur historian; however, it is also rigorous and clear, refreshingly shorn of ideological baggage, and unencumbered by hyperspecialized academic jargon.
A timely, valuable resource for those who want a deeper understanding of a troubled region.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1463557003
Page Count: 404
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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