Paul, Ludwig (ed.). 2013. Handbuch der Iranistik. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag.
This manual for Iranian Studies presents a comprehensive survey of status and trends of current research in the filed of Iranian Studies. In 34 contributions, the most important disciplines of the field, namely history, literature, religion and language were examined by 33 authors on almost 500 pages. It comprised both the current state of Iran as well as the Iranian cultural sphere in its geographic breadth and historical depth, from Anatolia to Central Asia and from the early history (7th millennium BC) Until today. The manual aims to provide a methodical presentation of research developments and tries to answer the questions such as: what research questions are fresh and interesting? why and in which research contexts they are important?
All contributions of the manual are divided into three sections A, B and C. The section A guides the reader through fundamental and self-reflexive methodological considerations to approach the subject. The section B provides a research overview, and the section C gives an alphabetical bibliography on each subject.