Another Anti Iranian Book

For starters, I scratched my head a few times during the listening when he was talking about a place called "Arabian Gulf" I thought maybe he was talking about some other gulf somewhere else. But, when he repeated it again and again I understood that he was changing the ancient gulf's name 'Persian Gulf' to the newer Pan-Arabic name "Arabian Gulf" in a book called Rome And Persia.
That just shows the extent to which this book is Anti Persian or Anti Iranian. even in the times when Iran was a superpower, that is Arabian gulf somehow.
I just don't know if this book is pro-Roman or pro-Arab. because the only person outside of the Arab world I have seen to call the Gulf Arabian is Donald Trump.
But Clearly, the writer has a crush on the Roman empire.

The whole book structure is like this:
1. Iranians win something or have any sort of success -> he explains why it didn't matter or Romans were weak then or Iranians got lucky.
He presents a case of each and every Roman defeat, it's like in court, when Iranians win something he will convince you why it's an empty win.

The first time I heard about this book was on toldinstone channel and there the writer mentioned the battle of Carrhae, the first encounter between two great empires that would fight for the next 600 years, the killing of Crassus which somehow led to the republic to collapse. all that and the author says: 'the battle wasn't that important' and continues to mention: 'Battles in europe or cannne were even more important and Carrhae shouldn't be considered that important at all'
That was the moment my enthusiasm for this book went at the door. I think Carrhae is one of the most important battles of all time, people could speak latin in Baghdad if it wasn't for Carrhae, everything would change, EVERYTHING. This battle was the start of the bordering between the east and the west.

Interestingly he explains that Romans were called Romans in ancient times by themselves and others, and he explains why calling them Byzantine is wrong and is a newer invention but he refuses to call Iranians by their true name and partitions them by Parthians or Persians. only once he points to where Iranian Kings call themselves: Kings of Iran, or Kings of Iranians or none Iranians. and that's it, he NEVER visits the topic again.
I wish he would explore the system on which being Iranian mattered and talked about 'Shahnameh' and how that related to Iranians fighting hard..etc. he basically never mentions anything on that part. Heck I don't think he even mentions how Parthians and Persians and all that huge empire is basically all IRANIAN. (but he always calls the Romans - Romans as they are one great people)
We hear more about the details of what Roman generals did in the West than anything about the Iranian peoples or how they had the technology or national will to do what they did, as he mentions Romans were hugely more wealthy and bigger.

He strictly says that Romans were superior both in wealth and basically everything else, in another place, he mentions that Romans NEVER copied anything from Iran, they came up with everything themselves.
He refuses to even say Romans copied at least heavy cav from Iranians, Iranian religion was spreading deep into Europe and Romans were clearly copying not only the monotheistic, Maanaism religion for the soldiers, but also the ruling style in government which changed everything and it looked more Iranians as time went on, but the author puts it like this: 'as time went by they become look alike'
No, Romans became like Iranians, they relied on horses more and more, what they wore and how they behaved and almost all of the ceremonies and crowns were copied from Iranians, (the same thing happened under Alexander) Iranians never relied on Infantry because of Romans, Romans relied on a heavy horse because of Iranians, still author refuses to address any of these.

All and all the book could easily be 4/5 for me if it weren't for the Arabian Gulf. I take 3 points for that because that's downright Anti-Iranian.

I wish a better book to be written on this extremely interesting subject.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!