From Publishers Weekly
With breezy storytelling and diligent research, Kinzer has reconstructed the CIA's 1953 overthrow of the elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, who was wildly popular at home for having nationalized his country's oil industry. The coup ushered in the long and brutal dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Shah, widely seen as a U.S. puppet and himself overthrown by the Islamic revolution of 1979. At its best this work reads like a spy novel, with code names and informants, midnight meetings with the monarch and a last-minute plot twist when the CIA's plan, called Operation Ajax, nearly goes awry. A veteran New York Times foreign correspondent and the author of books on Nicaragua (Blood of Brothers) and Turkey (Crescent and Star), Kinzer has combed memoirs, academic works, government documents and news stories to produce this blow-by-blow account. He shows that until early in 1953, Great Britain and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company were the imperialist baddies of this tale. Intransigent in the face of Iran's demands for a fairer share of oil profits and better conditions for workers, British Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison exacerbated tension with his attitude that the challenge from Iran was, in Kinzer's words, "a simple matter of ignorant natives rebelling against the forces of civilization." Before the crisis peaked, a high-ranking employee of Anglo-Iranian wrote to a superior that the company's alliance with the "corrupt ruling classes" and "leech-like bureaucracies" were "disastrous, outdated and impractical." This stands as a textbook lesson in how not to conduct foreign policy.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In a riveting narrative that reads like a thriller, All the Shah's Men brings to life the 1953 CIA coup in Iran -- a regime change that ousted the country's elected prime minister, ushered in a quarter-century of brutal rule under the Shah, and stimulated the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Americanism in the Middle East. Selected as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and the Economist, it's essential reading if you want to put the American conquest of Iraq in context.

SYNOPSIS

Former New York Times reporter Kinzer details the events that led up to the CIA-organized coup that overthrew democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. He focuses on the policy debates in the British and U.S. governments that arose over Mossadegh's nationalization of the British owned oil companies. The coup is described as having been organized by the Dulles brothers, serving under President Eisenhower as Secretary of State and Director of the CIA, and by CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt over the fears and objections of the Shah himself. Events since, including the September 11th attacks, justify those few Americans who opposed the orchestration of the coup, argues Kinzer. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

… Mr. Kinzer, a veteran correspondent for The New York Times whose last foreign posting was in Istanbul (where he also covered Iran), decided to take another look at this well-known episode. He does so with a keen journalistic eye, and with a novelist's pen. In what is a very gripping read, he recounts the story of the coup and how it came about. In the process, he reveals much about Iran's history, paints a sharp portrait of British colonialism just at the point of its ultimate collapse, and lays bare the debate on how the United States should engage the world. — Ivo H. Daalder

The Los Angeles Times

Fifty years ago, the CIA overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh, the popular, democratically elected prime minister of Iran, and reinstalled the country's exiled monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah. In All the Shah's Men, Stephen Kinzer, a longtime New York Times correspondent, covers this event in an exciting narrative. He questions whether Americans are well served by interventions for regime change abroad, and he reminds us of the long history of Iranian resistance to great power interventions, as well as the unanticipated consequences of intervention. — Nikki R. Keddie

The Washington Post

… an entirely engrossing, often riveting, nearly Homeric tale, which, if life were fair, would be this summer's beach book. For anyone with more than a passing interest in how the United States got into such a pickle in the Middle East, All the Shah's Men is as good as Grisham. — Jeff Stein

Publishers Weekly

With breezy storytelling and diligent research, Kinzer has reconstructed the CIA's 1953 overthrow of the elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, who was wildly popular at home for having nationalized his country's oil industry. The coup ushered in the long and brutal dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Shah, widely seen as a U.S. puppet and himself overthrown by the Islamic revolution of 1979. At its best this work reads like a spy novel, with code names and informants, midnight meetings with the monarch and a last-minute plot twist when the CIA's plan, called Operation Ajax, nearly goes awry. A veteran New York Times foreign correspondent and the author of books on Nicaragua (Blood of Brothers) and Turkey (Crescent and Star), Kinzer has combed memoirs, academic works, government documents and news stories to produce this blow-by-blow account. He shows that until early in 1953, Great Britain and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company were the imperialist baddies of this tale. Intransigent in the face of Iran's demands for a fairer share of oil profits and better conditions for workers, British Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison exacerbated tension with his attitude that the challenge from Iran was, in Kinzer's words, "a simple matter of ignorant natives rebelling against the forces of civilization." Before the crisis peaked, a high-ranking employee of Anglo-Iranian wrote to a superior that the company's alliance with the "corrupt ruling classes" and "leech-like bureaucracies" were "disastrous, outdated and impractical." This stands as a textbook lesson in how not to conduct foreign policy. (July) FYI: Publication coincides with the 50th anniversary of the coup, a good news hook for promotion. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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