"World History" is a collection of important primary sources on the history of the ancient and medieval world. What makes this book important is that it is written by a historian who has been teaching ancient world history for the past 12 years in colleges and universities in the United States. The sources are selected to provide a complete overview of the social, political, economic, and religious history of ancient and medieval civilizations. The author has translated some of the primary sources and provides important comments and questions to bring a clearer understanding for the reader and to better frame the issues and lives of the pre-modern world.
Touraj Daryaee is the Howard C. Baskerville Professor in the History of Iran and the Persianate World at the University of California, Irvine. He was born in Tehran, Iran in 1967. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Los Angeles. Besides teaching ancient world history, Dr. Daryaee s research has focused on ancient and early medieval history of Iran and the Near East, specifically the Sasanian Empire. He has worked on Middle Persian literature, editing and translating several texts with commentary on geography, dinner speech, chess, and backgammon. He is also interested in the history of Zoroastrianism in Late Antiquity and its encounter with Islam. He is the editor of the "Name-ye Iran-e Bastan: The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies" and the director of "Sasanika: Late Antique Near East Project.""