Just how could Persia lose to Greece?

jamshidi_f, please understand I mean no offense....

But I'd be very careful about tossing out historical and archaeological evidence based on the theories postulated in one book.  You should check his sources and credentials and then check the contrary evidence before accepting any new theory willy nilly.

I did a google search on Dr.AbdoAzim Rezai and haven't found any hits yet.  I did find a Dr. Rezai who is a world renowned neurosurgeon in Cleveland and a Dr. Rezai at the University of Iran.

You presented what you claim is evidence and disregarded historical and archaeological evidence (NOT created by Americans or British as you claim - instead written by contemporaries) and yet you can't present the evidence at all......it doesn't have to be googleable.

It just has to be available for review and critique and cross reference.  It is not and that alone makes it unsubstantiated at best and suspect at worse.

My problem is that without being able to read and investigate Dr. Rezai's claims, I can neither accept nor deny them.

When wars were fought on horse back there was no such thing as technological gap and it was possible for the under dog to win a war over the superior power. It has happened many times during the ancient history. The ancient Iranians fought many wars and they won some and lost some. The few that get publicized are usually the the couple of battles lost to the Greeks. Any western movie made or any history book written about Greek/Roman and Iranian wars has a major twist favoring the Greeks. Technically Greece is in Europe and we Europeans like glorify them to satisfy our need for having an ancient history( I think it is some kind of complex). It just sells better. In reality ancient Greeks probably had much more in common with other Mediterranean and middle eastern cultures than with northern Europeans of that time who were living a nomadic life 

Ya, i agree. Greece has been influenced by the Middle Eastern and Egyptian cultures more than anything else. Their alphabet is even derived from the Phoenician alphabet.

Still, its an influence. I am not saying Greeks "copied" technologies from other civillizations. Merely the roots go back that far. Its like English being influenced by the Norman French.

But its clear that Greece was much more of a Middle Eastern Civillization than a European one. I would even say that even up to the First Crusades the Greeks had quite more in common with Middle East than with the Western Europeans - omitting their common faith in Christianity.

Now, if there is a presumtuous and completely off mark post on this board, this is the one!

Greece was a middle eastern civilization? that is utterly silly.

What excactly is "Europe" and "Europoean civilization"? I find it hard to believe that you don't know that the word "Europe" is Greek and the Greeks named the continent.

But I digress. There is something today called "West". It is an artificial, more or less, term, more an umbrella term, trying to put a conlomerate of different nations under a common heritage. A heritage that is true, though.

"West" originates from Greece. The individualist, freedom-loving, democratic spirit of ancient Greece is what defines "West" in the first place.

Then come the Romans. They got a good deal of Greek influence to start with and when they took over the world from the Greeks, they re-definied "West", adding a series of other characteristic like industruous and  practical and proceded even further the distinction between "civilized" (="West") and "barbarians"(=non "West").

So, Greeks laid the foundation. Romans buld upon that foundation, expanded and brought the "West" concept in a great area of the world. After them, the various Germanics took over the legacy of Rome, and after a long dark age, created the regeneration of the "Western" spirit with the Renaissance - blossomed in the once center of the Roman world, Italy, and with the aid of the Greeks of their time, the Byzantines - and the consequential movements (mainly Reformation and Enlightment).

So, saying that ancient Greeks are not "European" is like saying Europe is in middle East = rather inaccurate. 

Regarding influences: Human civilization does not "grow" in a vacuum. ALL cultures throughout the ages own to eachother. The matter is, what a culture does with the influence. The Greeks got alot by the middle East but they created a miraculous culture. The Romans got most of their stuff by the Greeks, but created the glorious Roman culture.  See what I am trying to say? No cultures are born in a vacuum, human civilization is a continuity.