Celebrations in Iran next year will mark 2,500 years of virtually unbroken monarchy, making the imperial state crown of Iran the oldest symbol of monarchy in the world.
John Julius Norwich takes this as his theme to tell the story of Persia through the monuments that it has left like milestones along its path, culminating in that sunburst of splendour, the 17th-century city of Isfahan.
The most holy shrine of Meshed, filmed for the first time, is crowded at all times by thousands of worshippers, evidence of another strength, for no city outside Mecca itself throbs so insistently with the pulse of Islam.
Written by John Julius Norwich