Shah of Shahs - Penguin Modern Classics (Paperback)
Ryszard Kapuscinski (author), Christopher de Bellaigue (author of introduction)- In stock
A masterly piece of reportage from the firestorm of the Iranian revolution, Shah of Shahs details the twilight years of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the final Shah of Iran. A blistering account of paranoia, delusion and encroaching insurrection, Kapuscinski’s fast-paced narrative tells the dramatic story of a seismic fall from grace.
Shah of Shahs depicts the final years of the Shah in Iran, and is a compelling meditation on the nature of revolution and the devastating results of fear. Here, Kapuscinski describes the tyrannical monarch, who, despite his cruel oppression of the Iranian people, sees himself as the father of a nation, who can turn a backward country into a great power - a vain hope that proves a complete failure. Yet even as Iran becomes a 'behemoth of riches' and as the Shah lives like a European billionaire, its people live in a climate of fear, terrorized by the secret police.
Told with intense power and feeling, Kapuscinski portrays the inevitable build-up to revolution - a cataclysmic upheaval that delivered Iran into the rule of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780141188041
Number of pages: 176
Weight: 134 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 10 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'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
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