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. "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, 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.
