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The Iranian Expanse:  Transforming Royal Identity Through Architecture, Landscape, and the Built Environment, 550 BCE – 642 CE
By Matthew P. Canepa
University of California Press, 2018

The product of a decade of research, and winner of the 2020 James R, Wiseman Book Award, Mathew Canepa’s book The Iranian Expanse explores how kings in Persia and the ancient Iranian world utilized the built and natural environment to form and contest Iranian cultural memory, royal identity, and sacred cosmologies. Investigating over a thousand years of history, from the Achaemenid period to the arrival of Islam. The Iranian Expanse argues that Iranian identities were built and shaped not by royal discourse alone, but by strategic changes to Western Asia’s cities, sanctuaries, palaces, and landscapes. It critically examines the construction of a new Iranian royal identity and empire, which subsumed and subordinated all previous traditions, including those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Anatolia. It then delves into the startling innovations that emerged after Alexander under the Seleucids, Arsacids, Kushans, Sasanians, and the Perso-Macedonian dynasties of Anatolia and the Caucasus, a previously understudied and misunderstood period.

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FEZANA Information, Research and Education System (FIRES) is a centralized collection of books, manuscripts, literature, magazines, and scholarly research materials in print and electronic form, primarily pertaining to Zarathushti faith, culture, and history.

FIRES was established in 2010, and is housed and managed by the Zoroastrian Association of Houston (ZAH) Library. It is accessible by all FEZANA Associations and individuals.