Shah of Shahs - (Vintage International) by Ryszard Kapuscinski (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"Insightful and important.... A readable, timely and valuable contribution to the understanding of the revolutionary forces at work in Iran.... The reader almost becomes a participant." --The New York Times Book Review

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.

From the Back Cover

In this book, the author brings a mythographer's perspective and 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.

Review Quotes

"A book of great economy and power...with vivid imagery, a breathless way of writing that carries the reader along, and a supreme sense of the absurd." --New Republic

"Like Sir Richard Butron, Evelyn Waugh and Mungo Park, [Kapuscinski] makes literature out of journalism." --Newsweek

"Insightful and important.... A readable, timely and valuable contribution to the understanding of the revolutionary forces at work in Iran.... The reader almost becomes a participant." --The New York Times Book Review

"A supercharged particle of a book." --Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland's most celebrated foreign correspondent, was born in 1932 in Pinsk (in what is now Belarus) and spent four decades reporting on Asia, Latin America, and Africa. He is also the author of Imperium, Another Day of Life, and The Soccer War. His books have been translated into 28 languages. Kapuscinski died in 2007.