All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

Kinzer, Stephen

ISBN 10: 047018549X / ISBN 13: 9780470185490

Published by John Wiley & SOns, Inc, Hoboken, NJ, 2008

About this Item

Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. xxviii, 258 p. Illustrations, black & white. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Brimming with insights into Middle Eastern history and American foreign policy, this book is an eye-opening look at an event whose unintended consequences--Islamic revolution and violent anti-Americanism--have shaped the modern world. From Wikipedia: "Stephen Kinzer (born 4 August 1951) is a United States author, journalist and academic. A former newspaper reporter, the veteran New York Times correspondent has filed stories from more than fifty countries on five continents, as well as published several books. During the 1980s Kinzer covered revolution and social upheaval in Central America, as well as published his first book, Bitter Fruit, about military coups and destabilization in Guatemala during the 1950s. In 1990, the New York Times promoted Kinzer to bureau chief of its Berlin bureau, from which he covered the growth of Eastern and Central Europe as they emerged from Soviet rule. Kinzer was the New York Times chief in the newly established bureau in Istanbul (Turkey) from 1996 to 2000. Upon returning to the United States, Kinzer became the newspaper's culture correspondent, based in Chicago, as well as teaching at Northwestern University. Kinzer then took up residence in Boston and began teaching journalism and United States foreign policy at Boston University. Kinzer has written several non-fiction books about Turkey, Central America, Iran, the US overthrow of foreign governments from the late 19th century to the present, as well as Rwanda's recovery from genocide. Kinzer also contributes columns to the New York Review of Books and The Guardian. He is a visiting scholar at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. Kinzer has opposed interventionist U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America. In a 2010 interview with Imagineer Magazine, he stated: The effects of U.S. intervention in Latin America have been overwhelming negative. They have had the effect of reinforcing brutal and unjust social systems and crushing people who are fighting for what we would actually call American values. In many cases, if you take Chile, Guatemala, or Honduras for examples, we actually overthrew governments that had principles similar to ours and replaced those democratic, quasi-democratic, or nationalist leaders with people who detest everything the United States stands for. In Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq, published in 2006, Kinzer critiqued U.S. foreign policy as overly interventionist. In his 2008 book A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man who Dreamed It, Kinzer credits President Paul Kagame for the peace, development, and stability that Rwanda has enjoyed in the years after the Rwandan genocide, and criticizes the leaders of Rwanda before the genocide such as Juvenal Habyarimana." Good. Highlighting/underlining. Signed by author. Ink notations and underlining and other markings noted.

Seller Inventory # 68642

Bibliographic Details

• Title: All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
• Publisher: John Wiley & SOns, Inc, Hoboken, NJ
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 047018549X
• ISBN 13: 9780470185490
• Binding: Trade paperback
• Edition: Reprint. With a New Preface.
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Terrorism
  • CIA

About this title

Synopsis

Hailed as "a very gripping read" by The New York Times and selected as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and The Economist, this national bestseller brings to life the 1953 CIA coup in Iran that ousted the country’s elected prime minister and features a brand new preface by the author on the folly of attacking Iran.

As zealots in Washington intensify their preparations for an American attack on Iran, the story of the CIA’s 1953 coup—with its many cautionary lessons—is more urgently relevant than ever. All the Shah’s Men brings to life the cloak-and-dagger operation that deposed the only democratic regime Iran ever had. The coup ushered in a quarter-century of repressive rule under the Shah, stimulated the rise of Muslim fundamentalism and anti-Americanism throughout the Middle East, and exposed the folly of using violence to try to reshape Iran. It’s essential reading if you want to place the American invasion of Iraq in context—and prepare for what comes next.

“An entirely engrossing, often riveting, nearly Homeric tale. . . . 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.” —THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

“An exciting narrative. [Kinzer] 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.”—THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

“A swashbuckling yarn [and] helpful reminder of an oft-neglected piece of Middle Eastern history.”—THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

About the Author

Stephen Kinzer is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has worked in more than fifty countries. He has been New York Times bureau chief in Istanbul, Berlin, and Managua, Nicaragua. His books include "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq" and "Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds."