Iran today is still struggling with the legacy of its own Islamic revolution, and is deeply divided between the moderates who enjoy broad public support and the conservatives who control the levers of power. The mixed policies that result are reflected in Iran's ambivalent military posture. In recent years, Iran has only conducted a limited build-up of its armed forces and has cut defense spending and arms imports. On the other hand, Iran has developed a carefully focused program that threatens shipping in the lower Gulf and the world's oil exports. It has strengthened its capability for uncon... View More...
In Shah of Shahs Kapuscinski brings a mythographer's perspective and a novelist's virtuosity to bear on the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, one of the most infamous of the United States' client-dictators, who resolved to transform his country into "a second America in a generation," only to be toppled virtually overnight. From his vantage point at the break-up of the old regime, Kapuscinski gives us a compelling history of conspiracy, repression, fanatacism, and revolution.Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand. View More...
The definitive biography of the last Shah of Iran, tracing his dramatic rise and fall and his role in the creation of the contemporary Islamic Republic. Though his monarchy was toppled in 1979 and he died in 1980, Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlevi, the last Shah of Iran, remains relevant today. He was a social reformer, a romantic egomaniac, and a deeply conflicted man and leader. Here, internationally respected author Abbas Milani gives us the definitive biography, more than ten years in the making, of the monarch who shaped Iran's modern age and with it the contemporary politics of the Middle East... View More...
