The Fall of Heaven

Author: Andrew Scott Cooper
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 0805098984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
An immersive, gripping account of the rise and fall of Iran's glamorous Pahlavi dynasty, written with the cooperation of the late Shah's widow, Empress Farah, Iranian revolutionaries and US officials from the Carter administration In this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth century's most complicated personalities, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Andrew Scott Cooper traces the Shah's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He draws the turbulence of the post-war era during which the Shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the world's top five powers. Readers get the story of the Shah's political career alongside the story of his courtship and marriage to Farah Diba, who became a power in her own right, the beloved family they created, and an exclusive look at life inside the palace during the Iranian Revolution. Cooper's investigative account ultimately delivers the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty through the eyes of those who were there: leading Iranian revolutionaries; President Jimmy Carter and White House officials; US Ambassador William Sullivan and his staff in the American embassy in Tehran; American families caught up in the drama; even Empress Farah herself, and the rest of the Iranian Imperial family. Intimate and sweeping at once, The Fall of Heaven recreates in stunning detail the dramatic and final days of one of the world's most legendary ruling families, the unseating of which helped set the stage for the current state of the Middle East.

The Oil Kings

Author: Andrew Scott Cooper
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439155186
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 544

Book Description
Relying on a rich cache of previously classified notes, transcripts, cables, policy briefs, and memoranda, Andrew Cooper explains how oil drove, even corrupted, American foreign policy during a time when Cold War imperatives still applied, and tells why in the 1970s the U.S. switched its Middle East allegiance from the Shah of Iran to the Saudi royal family. Amid the oil shocks of the early 1970s, there was one man the U.S. could rely on: the Shah of Iran. The Shah sold us oil; we sold him weapons. But the U.S. and other industrialized economies could not tolerate repeated annual double digit increases in oil prices. During the 1976 election campaign, President Gerald Ford decided that he had to find a country that would break the OPEC monopoly and sell the U.S. oil more cheaply. On the advice of Treasury Secretary William Simon -- and against the advice of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger -- Ford made a deal to sell advanced weaponry to the Saudis in exchange for a more moderate price hike in oil. The Shah's economy was destabilized, and disaffected elements mobilized to overthrow him. The U.S. had embarked on a long relationship with the autocratic Saudi kingdom that continues to this day.

Heaven on Earth

Author: Joshua Muravchik
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1893554783
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438

Book Description
"The search for the Promised Land took socialists in diverse directions: revolution, communes and kibbutzim, social democracy, communism, fascism, Third Worldism. But none of these paths led to the prophesied utopia. Nowhere did socialists succeed in creating societies of easy abundance or in midwifing the birth of a "New Man," as their theory promised. Some socialist governments abandoned their grandiose goals and satisfied themselves with making slight modifications to capitalism, while others plowed ahead doggedly, often inducing staggering human catastrophes. Then, after two hundred years of wishful thinking and fitful governance, socialism suddenly imploded in the 1990s in a fin du siecle drama of falling walls, collapsing regimes and frantic revisions of doctrine."--BOOK JACKET.

The Fall of Lucifer

Author: Wendy Alec
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
ISBN: 0310096197
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Book Description
In the beginning… Three brothers – Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer. Royalty. Archangels. United in devotion to their father and all his works. But when Lucifer learns of their father’s latest creation – a new race, fashioned from crude matter and yet made in his image – he is consumed with resentment. Why have he and his angelic kind been overlooked? After a bitter confrontation, Lucifer is cast out, doomed to an eternity of exile and punishment. Unrepentant, he vows he won’t suffer alone. Mankind has made a powerful enemy – one determined to lure it into darkness and torment any way he can… “There could be no bigger canvas for film-making.” – Mark Ordesky (Executive Producer – Lord of the Rings); “Alec not only re-frames pre-history; she also imaginatively illustrates how the realm of spirit impacts the contemporary material world.” Ileen Maisel (Executive Producer for the Golden Compass) “This is the best work of fiction I have read since the last installment of Dean Koontz’ Frankenstein series” Jim McDonald – 1340Mag – Online Entertainment Magazine.

Iran and the CIA

Author: D. Bayandor
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230277306
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
In the early 1950s, frail septuagenarian prime minister of Iran, Doctor Mohammad Mosaddeq, shook the world - challenging Britain by nationalizing Iran's British-run oil industries. In August 1953 he was overthrown. Revisiting these events with astonishing new evidence, this book challenges the conventionally-held theory of foul play by the CIA.

The Last Shah

Author: Ray Takeyh
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030021779X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Book Description
The surprising story of Iran's transformation from America's ally in the Middle East into one of its staunchest adversaries "An original interpretation that puts Iranian actors where they belong: at center stage."--Michael Doran, Wall Street Journal "For the clearest view of Iran for the last 100 years, this book is it."--Marvin Zonis, author of Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah Offering a new view of one of America's most important, infamously strained, and widely misunderstood relationships of the postwar era, this book tells the history of America and Iran from the time the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was placed on the throne in 1941 to the 1979 revolution that brought the present Islamist government to power. This revolution was not, as many believe, the popular overthrow of a powerful and ruthless puppet of the United States; rather, it followed decades of corrosion of Iran's political establishment by an autocratic ruler who demanded fealty but lacked the personal strength to make hard decisions and, ultimately, lost the support of every sector of Iranian society. Esteemed Middle East scholar Ray Takeyh provides new interpretations of many key events--including the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini--significantly revising our understanding of America and Iran's complex and difficult history.

Winds of Change

Author: Reza Pahlavi
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 9780895261915
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description
The son of the deposed Shah of Iran reflects on Iran's political situation (without mentioning his father) and argues for a campaign of civil disobedience to the current Iranian regime that would hopefully lead to a constitutional monarchy restoring a Pahlavi to the throne of Iran. He discusses energy policy, foreign policy, and the Iranian Diaspora suggesting that the policies of the current clerical leaders of Iran have led to disastrous results for the Iranian people. He counters this with some rather bland bromides about international cooperation, secularization, self-determination, and cultural preservation. If brought back to the throne, he claims he will consult all of the Iranian people in governing the nation. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

The Book of Heaven

Author: Patricia Storace
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375707557
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Book Description
From the author of the acclaimed Dinner with Persephone comes a radically original novel about four women who invite us to imagine the divine anew: what if “a woman’s point of view” were also God’s? Patricia Storace’s Eve begins by telling us her version of what happened in Eden, and by revealing that our familiar constellations conceal other heavens we have never allowed ourselves to see. Each of the four subsequent chapters is the story of one of these new zodiacs, featuring images central to women: a knife, a cauldron, a garden, a pair of embracing lovers. The four women whose stories they tell are Job’s daughter, the Queen of Sheba, a polytheistic cook, and a transformed Sarah, wife of Abraham. Storace brilliantly reimagines the worlds of these women, freeing them from the old tales in which they were trapped and putting them in the foreground of their stories and of the Old Testament itself.

Fall of Heaven

Author: Reinhold Messner
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 168051086X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
A classic event in mountaineering history, dramatically retold by a classic mountaineer • Ascending the Matterhorn was the 19th century equivalent of standing on Mars • A great historical story of tension and drama • Author is uniquely qualified to delve into Whymper’s complicated personality As Fall of Heaven begins, we join professional mountain guide Jean-Antoine Carrel as he tries and fails, again and again, to summit the Matterhorn—one of the most famous and iconic peaks in the Alps. Is it the “Devil’s mountain,” as the locals call it? Should he heed the village priest who warned that its summit was not meant to be climbed? Carrel is undeterred, he just needs capable climbers to join him. Enter Edward Whymper, who in 1861 at the age of 21 decided—unbeknownst to Carrel—that he would be the first to climb the Matterhorn. So the storyline is set, except that where Carrel is captivating, Whymper is utterly unsympathetic as an adventurer. He is mean and disdainful of guides, describing them as little more than porters who eat and drink too much. Despite this attitude, Whymper’s quest leads him inexorably into partnership with Carrel. The story follows their many attempts to find a route to the top of the Matterhorn, but then fate pulls them apart just as Whymper finds the line. His successful summit on July 14, 1865, in which Carrel did not take part, shocked the Victorian world with both awe and revulsion as four members of Whymper’s party died in frightening falls. Famed climber and author Reinhold Messner acknowledges that Whymper was the first man to summit the Matterhorn, the last of the great Alpine peaks to be climbed and representing the beginning of an age of alpinism based on difficulty rather than conquest. But rather than leaving a hero’s legacy, Whymper is revealed as the Captain Ahab of alpinism, a team leader who accepted no responsibility for the deaths of his teammates. Fall of Heaven is an exciting tale and an examination of the different types of men who were caught up in the adventuring spirit of the Victorian age, and the ironic fates that can follow success or failure.

My Path to Heaven

Author: Geoffrey Bliss
Publisher: Sophia Institute Press
ISBN: 0918477484
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 97

Book Description
Twelve lessons focus on important teachings of the Catholic faith, including our relationship with God, the consequences of sin, and events in the life of Jesus.