Explores the influence of Iran's history, both religious and political, on the Iranian national identity and discusses the role of literary, religious, intellectual, and cultural movements of the past on Iranian civilization today.

Origins : Zoroaster, the Achaemenids, and the Greeks -- The Iranian revival : Parthians and Sassanids -- Islam and invasions : the Arabs, Turks and Mongols -- the Iranian reconquest of Islam, the Sufis, and the poets -- Shiʻism and the Safavids -- The fall of the Safavids, Nader Shah, the eighteenth-century interregnum, and the early years of the Qajar dynasty -- The crisis of the Qajar monarchy, the revolution of 1905-1911, and the accession of the Pahlavi dynasty -- The Pahlavis and the revolution of 1979 -- Iran since the revolution : Islamic revival, war, and confrontation -- From Khatami to Ahmadinejad, and the Iranian predicament.