I'm looking for Iranian history, with several preferences.
First is narrative focus applied equally over a long time span. This can be centuries or millennia. Nothing less than a century. This excludes many popular options like 'All the shah's men.'
Second is geographical focus. I'm very happy to read about Persian/Iranian dealings with Africa, Asia, Europe, etc, but I want these discussions to keep Iran/Persia itself as the focus. This excludes books that feature the region heavily as only a sub-component of a larger narrative, such as any survey of the broader Middle East, West Asia, etc.
Third is that the author has actually lived in the region for some amount of time at any point in their life before writing their book. Here I'm thinking of how authors like Vincent Bevins, Vijay Prashad, and William Dalrymple are able to convey nuance in their discussions by spending time in the locations they write about, which more abstracted distant accounts would likely miss.
Fourth is that the book is not a thinly veiled critique or polemic against the region or its people, governments, cultures, religions, etc. No Niall Ferguson or Douglas Murray types. That dime-a-dozen nonsense is easy to spot so it'd just be a waste of everyone's time to recommend it.
Bonus points for the following:
– The author is from the region, can trace family ancestry to it, has emigrated to it, or otherwise has personal ties to it beyond simply living there. I'm thinking here of the dimensions authors like Rashid Khalidi and Sathnam Sanghera are able to add to their works on Palestine and India respectively due to such connections, for example, despite living outside those nations.
– The author is familiar with the tools and concepts of historical materialism, at least on a basic level. Ideally they'd also employ such tools in their primary analyses, like Domenico Losurdo, Clara Mattei, and Cedric Robinson do in their histories for example. However it is enough for the author simply to be conscientious of these tools and use them to inform a broader historiographical framework, like Sven Beckert and Eric Hobsbawm for example.
– Anthropological or archeological expertise is a plus, like with David Graeber and Josephine Quinn. Even prehistory a la Rebecca Sykes would be welcome.
Obviously that's a lot. I'm sure any recommendation will miss several of these preferences. That's fine. Looking forward to learning what's out there!
by hmmwhatsoverhere