The Cambridge History of Iran

The Cambridge History of Iran is the most comprehensive scholarly reference in English on the history of Iran — a seven-volume series published by Cambridge University Press between 1968 and 1991, covering everything from the archaeology and geography of the Iranian land to the rise of the Islamic Republic.

Unlike a single-author book, each volume was assembled by an editor and a team of the world’s leading Iranologists — among them Ehsan Yarshater, Richard Frye, and William Fisher. This structure guarantees the specialist depth of every section.

The volumes cover, in turn, the land and people of Iran; the Median and Achaemenid periods; the Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian eras; the early Islamic centuries; the Seljuq and Mongol periods; the Safavid age; and finally the span from Nader Shah to the modern day. Each volume is itself an independent and much-cited reference in its field.

For serious Iranian researchers and readers, the series is the cornerstone of the academic study of Iranian history. Its bulk and specialized language are not for everyone, but no serious library on Iran is complete without it.