History of Early Iran

Histories of Iran regularly begin with Cyrus the Persian and generally conclude with Alexander the Great. At present (1936) there is no single work which describes in a comprehensive fashion the history of the Iranian plateau before Cyrus attained mastery. This is the more regrettable since the history of a section of the plateau, Elam, cannot be neglected by any serious student of the ancient Near East. The present study endeavors to present the facts about early Elamite and Iranian history in a manner which will be at the same time useful to the scholar and intelligible to the layman.