Professor of history at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Albert Olmsted, having devoted his life to the study of the ancient Near East, has compiled previously unknown material about the life, times and thinking of the Persians into a coherent narrative. It was Persia that for two centuries - from the extension of power to Greece by King Cyrus the Great and to the burning of Persipolis, the capital of the kingdom, by Alexander the Great - occupied the enviable position of dictator of history. In his book, the author shows how the science, literature, language and myths of the ancients grew out of a mixture of many cultures and contributed to the formation of a future civilization.