The Life and Times of the Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Irans ruler from 1941 to 1979—and one of the 20th centurys more controversial political figures—gets a spirited if not always compelling defense in this sprawling biography. Afkhami (The Iranian Revolution), an Iranian studies scholar and an official of the shahs regime, paints him as a moderate, progressive leader who championed womens rights, secularism and balanced economic development. He was his own man, not an American puppet, Afkhami argues, strenuously challenging interpretations of the 1953 ousting of the nationalist prime minister, Mohammad Mossadeq, as a CIA-engineered coup. And the crimes of his notorious SAVAK secret police, the author contends, were milder than commonly thought—and anyway, the shah knew little about them. Afkhami corrects conventional views of the shahs reign as merely a despotic prelude to the Islamic revolution, but his perspective seems blinkered by his subjects self-regard. The shah emerges as almost a paragon—devoted to his people and Irans constitution, undone by his own misguided humanity and restraint in confronting Khomeinis cabal of Islamists and their liberal dupes. When all Iran rises to overthrow him, the reader is as surprised as the shah. Photos.(Jan.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.