Best books on the Persians and Cyrus?

by sloughlin99

Learned a little bit about the Persians in class this week and was wondering the best books on Cyrus and the Persians.

ByzantineBasileus
Trevor_Culley

Excellent question, with more answers than I think you really want. u/ByzantineBasileus hit the two surveys that everyone should have a look at. Ancient Persia by Matt Waters is brief and concise and From Cyrus to Alexander by Pierre Briant is still the definitive book on Achaemenid Persia. I have a few more recommendations.

Discovering Cyrus by Reza Zarghamee. Assuming you mean Cyrus the Great, this is the book.

The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period by Amelie Kuhrt. This is an invaluable collection of primary sources for the Persian Empire with commentary.

Encyclopaedia Iranica is a free, online, academic encyclopedia for all parts of Iranian history, including the Achaemenids.

I also maintain a much larger list the most useful books for ancient Persia on my website