Some Fifteen Years Ago, The First Fascicle of What Seemed to be an almost megalomaniacal undertaking was published; since 1982 the Encyclopaedia Iranica (EIr) has not stopped growing slowly but steadily, and one can not imagine Iranian studies anymore without it. In the course of a decade and a half, in which eight impressive volumes have left the editorial rooms of the Center for Iranian Studies at Columbia University in New York, its wealth of learned information has made it an indispensable multidisciplinary tool for non-specialists and specialists alike interested in just about any aspect of Iranian civilization. Meanwhile it can easily bear comparison to that other major enterprise called Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (RE), which is all the more astonishing in view of the fact that even fewer scholars are working in the field of Iranian studies than in that of Classical studies. Were it not for the exemplary international cooperation between scholars of four continents, this monumental encyclopaedia would probably have remained just a concept.
