Houston Southard

reza Aslan - An AMerican Martyr in persia

I will be the only one to review this book as comical.

Howard Baskerville went to Iran to convert its Muslims into Christians, but ended up staying to die alongside its revolutionaries as it battled for freedom from its oppressive monarchy.

The book focuses on Persian politics in the early 20th century, decades before it would be formed into Iran, and on the missionaries who often gave their life in the pursuit of disillusioning them of Islam in favor of accepting Christ as their savior.

It reads as action-packed geopolitical history, and while it briefly touches on Persian Religion before being converted to Islam, for most of its existence, Persia's dominant faith was Zoroastrianism.

All ancient cultures enrapt in dogma struggled with the coexistence of good and evil, hypothesizing a demonic, divine force that was responsible for evil, because a "good" god could not possibly be responsible for bad things.

Zoroastrianism entered the fray in the 11th century BCE and was the world's 2nd attempt at monotheism (after Egypt's failed 14th century BCE Atenism), before it was later reformed as the world's 1st dualistic religion (the origin of an evil deity opposing the creator deity).

Its founder, Zarathustra, had overturned the faith by suggesting one’s ethical actions on earth - as judged by his god alone - would carry consequences in the next life in the form of eternal reward or punishment. If it sounds familiar that's because it is.

A zealous missionary travels halfway across the world to convert foreign peoples to christianity, peoples who for centuries followed a religion from which christianity was conceived. Irony.

The real Aryans were Persian (present day Iran). So it's funny that as contemporary 'Aryans' were being equated to german and nordic whites, those same whites were waging holy campaigns throughout the region containing the real Aryans, the inhabitants of Iran. A region from which all abrahamic faiths are rooted in. More irony.

While this is a tale of bravery, its focus is on Persia/Iran and Howard Baskerville's abandonment of his post to preserve what he'd helped to build. He may was lost to history for a time, but his legacy wasn’t.