Understanding Iran

By William R. Polk,

Book cover of Understanding Iran

Book description

William R. Polk provides an informative, readable history of a country which is moving quickly toward becoming the dominant power and culture of the Middle East. A former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Council, Polk describes a country and a history misunderstood by many in the West. While…


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Why read it?

1 author picked Understanding Iran as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Persia has always fascinated me. When Cyrus the Great laid out the Persian Empire 3,000 years ago, many of the principles he applied are today recognized as resilience and adptation planning. Unsurprisingly, we had to learn so many of these lessons again and again. So much so, that today we think we have achieved great policy and planning insights only to discover that the ancients had been quite adept at them. Time again, whether infrastructure planning, emergency management, social capital, irrigation, agriculture, medicine or the sciences, the adept ancients turn out to include Persians. So how did such an extraordinary…