Baghdad and Isfahan: A Dialogue of Two Cities in an Age of Science ca
1) Baghdad and Isfahan: A Dialogue of Two Cities in an Age of Science ca. 750–1750 – Elaheh Kheirandish
Harvard University Press | 2021 | PDF, EPUB
Renowned as great centres of learning, the cities of Baghdad and Isfahan were at the heart of the Islamic ‘age of science’. Their distinct cultural voices inspired a unique historical dialogue, which finds new expression in Baghdad and Isfahan: A Dialogue of Two Cities in an Age of Science, the story of how knowledge was transmitted and transformed within Islamic lands, and then spread across the globe. Charting the history of Baghdad and Isfahan from 750 to 1750, Elaheh Kheirandish draws on the voices of court astronomers, mathematicians, scientists, mystics, jurists, statesmen and Arabic and Persian translators and scholars. Telling the story of the rise of Baghdad and the decline of Isfahan, as capital cities and as centres of intellectual thought, this unique book addresses Islamic culture’s extensive and lasting contribution to the history of science. Kheirandish bases her narrative on a unique medieval manuscript and other historical sources and the result is more than a thousand-year “tale of two cities”-it is a city by city, and century by century, look at what it took to change the world. In a feat of travelogue and time travel, Kheirandish creates parallel stories with modern and historical characters, crossing cities worldwide, and capturing changes through time.
2) America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present – John Ghazvinian
Knopf | 2021 | EPUB
In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of the relations between these two nations back to the Persian Empire of the eighteenth century—the subject of great admiration by Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams—and an America seen by Iranians as an ideal to emulate for their own government.
Drawing on years of archival research both in the United States and Iran—including access to Iranian government archives rarely available to Western scholars—the Iranian-born, Oxford-educated historian leads us through the four seasons of U.S.–Iran relations: the spring of mutual fascination; the summer of early interactions; the autumn of close strategic ties; and the long, dark winter of mutual hatred. Ghazvinian makes clear where, how, and when it all went wrong. America and Iran shows why two countries that once had such heartfelt admiration for each other became such committed enemies—and why it didn’t have to turn out this way.
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America and Iran. A History, 1720 to the Present.epub
