“Who are the Iranians? Where did they come from?” To answer these questions, the author — a former British diplomat — explores the history of the beleaguered nation, going beyond the “violence and drama” to take the reader on a journey through Iran’s cultural past. The book spans the ancient era of the Prophet Zoroaster, the Persian empire, and the 1979 Islamic revolution, concluding during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad — the last time Iran was treated as a pariah state. Through this comprehensive history, Axworthy attempts to address the paradoxical nature of one of the world’s oldest and most influential civilisations and explain why perceptions of the nation have shifted over time.