Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire by Touraj Daryaee recounts the history of Iran’s last pre-Islamic empire, from its founding by Ardashir I to its collapse before the Arab conquest. Published in 2009, it won the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Prize in Middle Eastern Studies.

Touraj Daryaee holds the Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies and Culture and directs the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies at UC Irvine; he is among the foremost scholars of the Sasanian era in the world.

Daryaee examines the Sasanian period (224–651 CE) through underused primary sources such as Middle Persian texts, seals, and coins, focusing less on military events than on social structure, bureaucracy, and the place of Zoroastrianism as the state religion. He treats the Sasanian age as a golden era of Iranian culture and civilization.

For the Iranian reader, the book is a bridge between ancient Iran and post-Islamic Iran — an account of the last glory of the Persian imperial tradition before national identity was tested by the Arab invasion. Daryaee reminds us that many foundations of Iranian culture were laid in this very period.