History of Iran

The history of Iran (or Persia, as it was commonly known in the Western world) is intertwined with that of Greater Iran, a sociocultural region spanning the area between Anatolia in the west and the Indus River and Syr Darya in the east, and between the Caucasus and Eurasian Steppe in the north and the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman in the south. Central to this area is the modern-day country of Iran, which covers the bulk of the Iranian plateau.

Quotes

 * But the one remarkable achievement was the mixing of races that set the example for the cosmopolitan civilization of the near East after the conquest by Alexander. What resulted from the ‘Pax Persica’ was syncretism and cultural assimilation on a scale that had not previously been thinkable.
 * Cook, J. M. The Persian empire. 1983. 204


 * [The milieu of the Persian court was one in which intellectual and artistic intercourse between representatives of the various satrapies flourished. The Persians themselves] “clearly … were not a people that we should call intellectual. They do not themselves seem to have had an inclination towards literature, medicine, or philosophical and scientific speculation.” Still, they provided a setting in which such speculation could be freely pursued... “what resulted from the ‘Pax Persica,’” says Cook, “was syncretism and cultural assimilation on a scale that had not previously been thinkable.”
 * Cook, J. M. The Persian empire. 1983. p. 204, 230. quoted from The Shape of Ancient Thought_ Comparative - Thomas McEvilley