This elegant book, with 150 color photographs and 50 drawings and diagrams, traces the evolution of Persian gardens from ancient times to the present. Famed British garden writer Hobhouse begins by describing the oldest existing garden, Pasargadae, created by Cyrus the Great in the sixth century B.C.E., which provided shade, vegetation, and a refuge. She tells how the ancient Persians built a network of underground aqueducts to bring water from the mountains to the villages and cities in what is now Iran. Hobhouse discusses the spiritual dimensions of these gardens and describes what she labels "luxurious encampments," some of the most beautiful gardens in the world. Other chapters examine triumphant gardens and the gardens of rulers and merchants that were created in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.