Taken hostage
Subtitle: the Iran hostage crisis and America's first encounter with radical Islam
By: David Farber
Series: Politics and society in twentieth-century America
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Princeton, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 212
Subjects: Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981; Islam and politics -- Iran; United States -- Foreign relations -- Iran; Iran -- Foreign relations -- United States; United States -- Foreign relations -- 1977-1981
Description: "On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took sixty-six Americans captive. Thus began the Iran hostage crisis, an affair that captivated the American public for 444 days and marked America's first confrontation with the forces of radical Islam. Using hundreds of recently declassified government documents, historian David Farber takes the first in-depth look at the hostage crisis, examining its lessons for America's contemporary war on terrorism." "Unlike other histories of the subject, Farber's narrative looks beyond the day-to-day circumstances of the crisis, using the events leading up to the ordeal as a means for understanding it. The book paints a portrait of the 1970s in the United States as an era of failed expectations in a nation plagued by uncertainty and anxiety. It reveals an American government ill prepared for the fall of the Shah of Iran and unable to reckon with the Ayatollah Khomeini and his militant Islamic followers."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [191]-204) and index