The Shah's Last Ride. The Story of the Exile, Misadventures and Death of the Emperor.

William Shawcross

ISBN 10: 070113254X / ISBN 13: 9780701132545

Published by Chatto & Windus, London England, 1989

About this Item

Hardback. In January 1979 the Shah of Iran flew out of Teheran, taking with him members of his family, loyal retainers, and a planeload of household effects. Some months earlier widespread rioting had broken out, fermeneted by supporters of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, and the Shah was - ostensibly- taking an extended holiday: in fact he was leaving iran for the last time, an ill, uncomprehending man, baffled by the ingratitude of a people he had ruled with increasingly absolute power since 1941. The author combines his account of the Shah in exile with a vivid evocation of Iran as it was before life began to go sour for the Shah, from the celebrations at Persepolis to mark the climax of his rule to the torture cells of Savak, from the corruption of the royal court and the call-girls flown in from paris to the revolutionary puritanism of the Shi'ite mullahs, from Mossadeq's defiance of the British to the cheque book politics of Kissinger and Nixon. At once comical and tragic, sumptuous and seedy, this book is the most bizarre and terrible of cautionary tales. Illustrated. 463 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.).

Seller Inventory # 070514

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Shah's Last Ride. The Story of the Exile, Misadventures and Death of the Emperor.
• Publisher: Chatto & Windus, London England
• Publication Date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 070113254X
• ISBN 13: 9780701132545
• Binding: Cloth
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Autobiographies -Biography sociology -

About this title

Synopsis

First edition, first printing hardcover with unclipped dust jacket, in very good condition. From the private collection of Dame Carmen Callil, publisher, writer, critic and founder of Virago Press. Jacket edges are creased and nicked. Lower board edges and spine ends are bumped. Page block and page edges are tanned. Binding is sound and pages are clear. LW

From Publishers Weekly

By the author of Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia , this chronicles the forlorn journey into exile and death of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. It is also about the Pahlavi regime, its relations with the British and American governments and the popular uprising that toppled the Shah in 1979. In relating this classic tale of hubris, Shawcross is effective in delineating the Shah's blind arrogance as the petrodollars brought unimagined wealth to Iran. ("You in the United States," he remarked to a U.S. Treasury Secretary, "don't understand how a country should be run.") Instead of portraying him as a fool who got what he deserved, however, as a lesser writer might have done, Shawcross describes the Shah's 19-month exile as a pathetic search for refuge and for medical treatment by a homeless man who was unable to the very end to understand what had gone wrong. The author also reveals the complicated rivalry between the eight separate teams of doctors attempting to treat the medical problems that finally laid the Shah to rest on July 27, 1980. The Shah himself referred to this as "a medical soap opera." First serial to Vanity Fair; BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.