8o4 



NATURE 



[August 25, 192 1 



History of Persia. 



A History of Persia. By Brig. -Gen. Sir Percy 

 Sykes. (In two volumes.) Second edition. 

 Vol. i., xxviii + 563; vol. ii., pp. XX + 594. 

 (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1921.) 

 705. net. 



THAT this book, first published in 1915, 

 should already have appeared in a second 

 and enlarged edition is a welcome sign of the 

 times, if we may suppose that its popularity is 

 due, not only to the attractive way in which Sir 

 Percy Sykes has handled his subject, but also to 

 the growing interest that is being taken in 

 Oriental learning by many who before the war 

 never realised the importance of such knowledge, 

 and even now, perhaps, are but half aware how 

 much depends on its cultivation and diffysion 

 amongst us. Without understanding there can 

 be no friendship, and without friendship no la,st- 

 ing peace, ^ — I 



Persia has a history of 2500 years, and wb«(t a 

 history ! Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Behistun, Perse- 

 polis, Marathon, Alexander and his successors, the 

 Parthians, Ardashir, Shapur and Nushirwan, the 

 wars with Rome, the overthrow of the Sasanian 

 empire by the Arabs, Islam triumphant, Kerbela 

 and the rise of the Shia, the Bagdad Caliphate, 

 the revival of Persian nationalism, Seljuks and 

 Assassins, the Mongol avalanche, Chengiz, 

 Hulagu, and Tamerlane, the Il-Khans, the 

 spacious times of Shah Abbas the Great, Nadir 

 Shah, the Kajars, the Russian campaigns, the 

 envelopment of Persia, the Revolution, the 

 National Assembly and the first painful essays in 

 constitutional government; all this, too, intro- 

 duced by an account of yet more ancient civilisa- 

 tions which sprang up, flourished, and expired on 

 Persian soil — Medes, Assyrians, Elam, Sumer, 

 and Akkad — while in his closing chapters the 

 author deals with political and military events of 

 yesterday, including his own adventurous march 

 on Shiraz, the Dunsterville mission, and the 

 Anglo-Persian Agreement. 



Obviously a work written on this scale must 

 be either a compilation in the main oj else the 

 product of co-operative specialism, a method 

 which will always appeal to students rather than 

 to the general reader, and, in the present case, 

 would probably have required ten volumes instead 

 of two. It is no disparagement to Sir Percy 

 Sykes to say that the chief merit of his history 

 consists in the excellent use which he has made of 

 his authorities, in the apt selection of materials, 

 and in the skill with which they have been woven 

 mto a well-balanced and interesting narrative. 

 NO. 2704, VOL. 107] 



To have accomplished so much, single-handed, is 

 a remarkable achievement which easily outweighs 

 some defects of detail and others of a more serious 

 kind. Omissions, of course, were inevitable, but 

 it seems extraordinary that only six lines could 

 be spared for Ra^hidu'ddin Fadlu'llah, the 

 Prime Minister of Ghazan and Uljaytu, equally 

 eminent (to quote Prof, Browne) as a physician^ 

 a statesman, a historian, and a public benefactor, 

 and beyond doubt one of the ablest men whom 

 Persia has ever produced. 



The author is 'at his best in describing actions 

 and events ; he can tell a story, he goes straight 

 to the point, and his style is pleasing as well as 

 vigorous. But with the inner or deeper side of 

 his subject he is less at home, and here we find a 

 tendency to emphasise comparatively superficial 

 features instead of bringing out the essential. For 

 example, in the notice of Omar Khayydm he gives 

 a familiar reference to the poet's tomb, together 

 with a photograph, for which we are grateful; 

 but it might have been remarked that the quatrains 

 attributed to Omar, and in part composed by him, 

 derive importance from the fact that, being the 

 work of many different hands, and having accumu- 

 lated in the course of centuries, they exhibit the 

 character, not of any individual Persian, but of 

 Persia as a whole. This is a slight instance, and 

 Sir Percy is so strong in most respects that he 

 can afford to be a little disappointing in his treat- 

 ment of literary topics, religious doctrines, dervish 

 fraternities, and such matters as the influence of 

 mysticism upon Persian political history. On the 

 other hand, the strictly historical portion of the 

 work is supplemented by chapters giving much 

 useful information about geography, climate, 

 fauna, flora, and minerals, inscriptions and monu- 

 ments, architecture and art, etc. 



The author knows the country well, and has a 

 genuine, if not very profound, sympathy with its 

 people. His two volumes are lavishly illustrated. 

 For this reason alone, not to mention the pocket- 

 maps which accompany them, they are valuable 

 to students, while from what has been said con- 

 cerning the range and variety of their contents it 

 will be clear that they ought to find a place in the 

 library of everyone who is interested in Persia. 



The Kinetic Theory and the Quantum. 



The Dynamical Theory of Gases. By Prof. J. H. 

 Jeans. Third edition. Pp. vii 4-442. (Cam- 

 bridge: At the University Press, 1921.) 305. 

 net. 



THE first edition of this book was published 

 in 1904, the second in 1916, and now, only 

 five years later (and three of those were war years). 



