Persian Fire reads like a historical novel, and though he hardly mentions Ezra and Nehemiah, or the history of the small territory of Judah and Israel and its beloved and fated city of Jerusalem, he describes the massive geo-political forces that shaped Israel's future and decisively reconfigured her theology and self-understanding.
As background to the stories of Esther and Daniel the book is a fascinating exposure of absolute power tied to religious claims enforced by the biggest military build up in human history to that point. Herodotus first told this history – Holland makes it accessible without sacrificing the ambiguities of historical interpretation.
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