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The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty

2021

Synopsis

Offering a new view of one of America’s most important, infamously strained, and widely misunderstood relationships of the postwar era, this book tells the history of America and Iran from the time the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was placed on the throne in 1941 to the 1979 revolution that brought the present Islamist government to power. This revolution was not, as many believe, the popular overthrow of a powerful and ruthless puppet of the United States; rather, it followed decades of corrosion of Iran’s political establishment by an autocratic ruler who demanded fealty but lacked the personal strength to make hard decisions and, ultimately, lost the support of every sector of Iranian society. Esteemed Middle East scholar Ray Takeyh provides new interpretations of many key events—including the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—significantly revising our understanding of America and Iran’s complex and difficult history.

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King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation

On New Year’s Eve, 1977, on a state visit to Iran, President Jimmy Carter toasted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, Shadow of God on Earth, praising Iran as “an island of stability “ due to “your leadership and the respect and admiration and love which your people give ...

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All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

"All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror" by Stephen Kinzer is a meticulously researched historical account that chronicles the 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup in Iran, which toppled the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and reinstalle...

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