An insider's account of the 1979 Iranian Revolution challenges popular beliefs while drawing on a wealth of memoirs, diaries and newspaper reports to discuss such topics as the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini, the establishment of Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the development of Al-Qaida.

"In the early 1920s, in the remote village of Ghamsar, Talla and Sardar, two teenagers dreaming of a better life, fall in love and marry. Sardar brings his young bride with him across the mountains to the suburbs of Tehran, where the couple settles down and builds a home. From the outskirts of the capital city, they will watch as the Qajar dynasty falls and Reza Khan rises to power as Reza Shah Pahlavi. Into this family of illiterate shepherds is...

The Iranian people despised their leader, Reza Shah, who catered to foreign businesses while ruling Iran as a dictator. In 1979 discontent boiled up into all-out revolution. Led by the charismatic Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian people seized control and created a new government based on the Islamic religion.

Set in Iran in the decade following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, this moving, richly imagined novel is narrated by the ghost of Bahar, a thirteen-year-old girl, whose family is compelled to flee their home in Tehran for a new life in a small village, hoping in this way to preserve both their intellectual freedom and their lives. But they soon find themselves caught up in the post-revolutionary chaos that sweeps across their ancient land. Bahar's mother,...

"Tehran 1953. Jack Teller, a new recruit to the recently established Central Intelligence Agency, finds himself in Iran posing as a high-level American oil executive as part of Operation Ajax, the agency's first attempt to overthrow the government of a sovereign nation. Torn between loyalty to his country's policies and sympathy for the hopes of a fledgling democracy, Jack must ultimately pick which side he will betray. It is a decision that will...

In 1979, seemingly overnight -- moving at a clip some thirty years faster than the rest of the world -- Iran became the first revolutionary theocracy in modern times. Since then, the country has been largely a black box to the West, a sinister presence looming over the horizon. But inside Iran, a breathtaking drama has unfolded since then, as religious thinkers, political operatives, poets, journalists, and activists have imagined and reimagined what...

"Iran in the 1950s is wealthy in oil but riven by divisions of class, ethnicity, and religion, and its corrupt government is under foreign influence. At this volatile moment, an illiterate driver rescues a redheaded, blue-eyed baby girl who has been abandoned in a Tehran alley and names her Aria. When he can no longer care for her, he finds her a new home, setting her on an unlikely path from extreme deprivation to a life of privilege. Along the way,...

Presents an introduction to life in ancient Persia, discussing its government, religion, cities, education, religion, art, and everyday life.