Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones 2022. Persians. The age of the great kings London: Headline, 432 pp.

Unusual not to warm to a history book but the very freely-written narrative is so far removed from the original sources that objective information and interpretation are harder than usual to distinguish. The impression is that the author’s striving for a readable text has allowed the reader only passing exposure to the facts (from archaeology and from original texts). Clearly the author’s knowledge of the Persians (=Iranians) is great but there are no citations in the text and more structure is needed. So I didn’t persevere and will try instead some titles from his further reading, including: