DEEP IN THE ZAGROS Mountains in Iran’s northwest, Jason Elliot goes to the post-office to parcel home some souvenirs. In return, he receives a lament on the slights of history. “Don’t rely on Greek sou-rces alone for the book,” the official across the counter, warns him. Because: “The trouble with Herodotus is that he never knew enough about Iran to give a balanced picture.”

As on that day in Kermanshah, Elliot is a strikingly mindful traveller. He allows himself to remain in awe each time he glimpses Iran’s art and architecture. He is unafraid of quot-ing Hafez’s poetry back at Iranians to elicit deeper nuance. And he lattices his vast read-ings of Persian culture and civilisation to voices across the country. In his telling, the biggest discovery about the world’s first su-perpower is that even today it is an enigma. His achievement is not to crack that enigma, but to gain a measure of it.

There is, for one, the texture of time: “Ira-nians… even today are sensitive to the two-and- a-half-thousand-year-old slights made by Greek authors as if they had been directed at family members a generation or two ago.”

There is—George W. Bush, please note— the Iranian ritual of brinkmanship. On Tehran’s roads: “Cars slew at reckless velocity between the lanes, and swerve to avoid disas-ter with the suddenness of dragonflies in mid-flight.” And for a pedestrian, says a local, “The whole trick is to not let the driver think you’ve seen him, or he’ll never slow down.”

... contd.