Shirin, the beloved wife of the Persian shah, Chosroes II (b. 628), pulled political strings behind the scenes and supported the Christian minority in Iran. After the fall of Chosroes, Firdausi remembered Shirin in his epic, the "Shahnama." Around 1180, the Persian poet Nizami wrote of her alleged love for the master builder Ferhad in his epic "Chosroes and Shirin," which was often imitated in Persian, Turkish, and Indian literary circles. Shirin became an image of love par excellence, living on even as far as Europe in no less a work than Goethe's "West-ostlichen Divan."The book adds an interesting perspective to women studies in early Christianity, an area of research that has attracted considerable attention in recent years, and beautifully traces the transformation of a historic figure into a literary archetype.- Theresia Heimerl,Bücherbord (2004)Wilhelm Baum, historian, theologian, and philosopher, lives in Klagenfurt, Germany. In addition to English, his books have been translated into Spanish, Italian, and Slovenian.