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Tales From The Caspian Sea

  • May 25, 2020
  • 1 min read

Updated: Jan 13, 2021


Alexander the Great, it was still asserted into the early 19th century, had built the gates that separated East and West at the eastern edge of the Caucasus: what is now Azerbaijan lay beyond.

In ‘Tales from the Caspian Sea’, Bettany Hughes investigates the rich cultural history of the Caspian, a region which nourished the ancient world’s oldest theocracy, in the form of a Zoroastrian state, and pioneered an early Muslim-majority democracy in 1918. Her investigation of Azerbaijan - “the land of fire” - begins in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains with visits to the archaeological sites that are actively reanimating the history of the region.

Hughes discovers the landscape of Azerbaijan, which has been a centre of ancient trade on the Silk Road, inspired the poetry of the acclaimed poet Nizami Ganjavi and is a land that has been at the forefront of the development of civilisations and geopolitics to this day.

13 Comments


Daryl Mitchell
Daryl Mitchell
8 hours ago

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der Lean
der Lean
Feb 23

The way Bettany Hughes traces the legacy of Alexander the Great while uncovering layers of Zoroastrian, Islamic, and democratic history in Tales from the Caspian Sea makes the region feel vividly alive rather than distant and abstract. That sense of exploration and rediscovery is a bit like playing Veck IO — moving step by step through unfamiliar territory, uncovering depth and strategy where you least expect it.

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Copyright © Bettany Hughes 2009

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