Dr Michael Axworthy
MA, PhD (Cantab)
Extension: 4090
Telephone: 01392 724090
Senior Lecturer
Michael Axworthy visited Iran many times as a teenager in the 1970s, and served as the Head of Iran Section in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) from 1998-2000. He left the FCO in 2000, and his first book The Sword of Persia, about the great Iranian conqueror Nader Shah, was published in July 2006. He has written a number of articles on eighteenth-century and modern Iran for academic journals and edited volumes. He has also produced a series of pieces on contemporary Iran and other subjects for Prospect Magazine (www.prospect-magazine.com) and has made TV and radio appearances discussing Iranian subjects (including on BBC Radio 4's 'History of the World in 100 objects', hosted by Neil McGregor of the British Museum). His second book appeared in November 2007 as Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran (Hurst Books) and was published in Penguin paperback in November 2008 as Iran: Empire of the Mind, now translated into Dutch, Czech, Italian and Spanish. He was appointed Director of Exeter University's new Centre for Persian and Iranian Studies (CPIS) in the autumn of 2008.
