Answer to History
Answer to History (French: Réponse à l'histoire; Persian: پاسخ به تاریخ) is a memoir written by the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, shortly after his overthrow in 1979 by Islamic revolution. The book was originally written in French and was translated into English and Persian as well as other languages, and was published posthumously in 1980. Themes. The book is Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's personal account of his reign and accomplishments, as well as his perspective on issues related to the Iranian Revolution and Western foreign policy toward Iran. He places some of the blame  for the wrongdoings of the SAVAK as well as the failures of various democratic and social reforms (particularly through the White Revolution) upon Amir Abbas Hoveyda and his administration. In the book, the Shah wrote: Reactions. According to Ervand Abrahamian the book reads like the "ramblings of a paranoid". Abrahamian mentions some of Pahlavi's claims in support of his criticism of the book: He claims […] the British had "a hand" in the creation and growth of the Tudeh Party. They had plotted with the Tudeh and the Fada'iyan-e Islam to assassinate him in 1949, but had been forestalled  then as well as at other times by divine intervention. They had also secretly helped Mosadeq to "clip his [royal] wings" and impede his ambitious modernization programs. "We always suspected" he writes, "that [Mossadeq] was a British agent, a suspicion his further posturing as an anti-British nationalist did not diminish." The British, together with the oil companies and "reactionary clerics" had engineered the Islamic Revolution in retaliation for his championing of OPEC and the Palestinian cause. The Palestinians, as well as the Israelis, would have been surprised to hear that.