Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 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 -- Shiʻism 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