Customer Reviews

Iran and the Rise of the Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I read this book in both English and Farsi just to compare and also to refresh my mind with all the detail it provided. Call it strange, but I did not find a dull sentence in this book, nor did I think the material was just a cut and paste collage. C. Ghani has systematically presented material that needs time to be absorbed by our current knowledge of this issue. I think the book is excellent. Perhaps all the controversy would be eliminated if the book's title would have been, "Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah Based on The Archives of Imperialist England," or something like that.

I would suggest this book to anyone who has an interest in Reza Khan. I would hope that a similar book would be written based on the archives of Russia or Belgium as various readers have suggested, but that does not mean this book is not a grand contribution. I would like very much to read Eric Laurey's "Belge En Perzie." Maybe instead of criticzing Mr. Ghani, he should translate his work into English so that more people could read it. I for one would be very interested in reading the Belgian point of view.

As I browsed through the comments posted on this page, I kept wondering what all the controversy was about surrounding this book. From my point of view, all the criticism this book has received so far rests on very false foundations. I am very disappointed to see that in this stage of human history, people still molest a scholar calling his work `oriental history writing.' I'm so pleased to see that I am not the only person to be taken aback by this extremist remark. Maybe it is time that we too asked people to address our scholars with respect. Isn't it funny how every time an Iranian writes a book, someone from England employs this phrase to discount their effort (A similar comment is on Farmanfarmaian's book, Blood and Oil)? Why is that?

This book is a must have for people interested in modern Iranian history.

As many reviewers fail to note, this book is an account of the RISE of Reza Shah and not a biography.
It offers a thoroughly researched account of the crucial period leading up to the fall of the corrupt Qajar dynasty, a period for which no books of this quality exist.
The book ends with the begining of the Pahlavi dynasty and only offers an epilogue on the achievements and failings of Reza Shah as king. It will leave you salivating for more on what happens in the next phase of history.

The tone and style of the book is academic and may turn some readers off, but the content will give readers a new perspective on where Iran came from why it is where it is today.

It is not true that "no attempt has yet been made to piece together a narrative based on documents rather than hearsay" with regard to the period and the themes discussed in Ghani's book. At the risk of being narcissic I reccomend Ghani my own work "Belgen in Perzië" (available at Library of Congress) wich surprisingly is not mentioned in his bibliography. Belgian officials who worked in Iran from 1895 to 1934 (customs, finance, postal services etc.) and Belgian diplomats produced quite a few documents which provide an independent onlooker's analysis of what went on in Iran. Given the importance of the Belgian assistance in Iran, which was more successfull and lasted longer than Millspaugh's or Armitage Smith's, these documents are invaluable in studying this period of Iranian history. I do not believe it is permissible to leave the Belgian component almost unmentioned. Scores of policies, recommendations and cases of political and social assistance have been provided by Belgians to both the Qadjars and Reza Shah. Modernisation of the state was not made possible by the ephemeral Millspaugh tax-reform but rather by the long term and unrelenting Belgian efforts to render the customs system efficient. At one point these customs offices were the ONLY source of income for the Shah.

Some readers of this book appear too harsh on the author.
The book is certainly not the pinnacle of the art of biography. Ghani's prose is hesitant, almost amateurish. The book is also full of factual errors and tedious repetitions.
But the subject, a soldier who rose to become the King of Kings of Iran, one of the oldest monarchies in the world, is fascinating enough to compensate for the author's weaknesses.
Also, Ghani must be commended for sifting through a mass of British official documents about a critical period in Iranian history. He has been unable to analyze the documents and point out their relevance to events. But the fact that he offers them in good order is no mean achievement.
I give Ghani's book two stars if only because he has created new interest in Reza Shah, one of the greatest figures of the 20th century Middle East.
Interested Reader

As an outsider interested in Iran- thanks to Iranians friends- I was keen to learn more about a king who is regarded by many Iranians as the only leader worthy of respect the country has had for centuries.
In fact, my Iranian friends insist that only someone like Rez Shah could save their country from its current decline, and restore it to the path of progress and civilization.
The subject, therefore, must be exciting.
This book, however, is the very essence of dullness. It is as if the writer designed it to make the subject uninteresting.
There are large chunks of reports from the British diplomatic archives, little independent narrative, and no analysis whatsoever.
Worse still the author's prose is schoolboyish while the book seems to have not passed through the process of copy-reading and editing. It is full of factual and grammatical errors.
I dropped the book several times but made efforts to return to it. In the end the whole excercise was too much.
Please,please, pleeeeeeze, someone write a readable biography of Reza Shah! WV

This book may not have attracted so much criticism had its author claimed a more modest aim .
Here we have the old style of historical narration based on British diplomatic reports and documents.
To that extent the book could be interesting.
But it CERTAINLY cannot be presented as a biography of Reza Shah Pahlavi.
A biography would need many more sources, interviews with people directly or indirectly knowledgeable about the subject, and rigorous analysis of the data. Above all it requires a vision, one that Ghani singularly lacks. Mr. Ghani faithfully reports what he has read in the British archives but is incapable of analyzing the events he narrates.
AN INTERESTED READER

The author has done a good job of surveying what is now available on the subject of Reza Shahh from the declassified documents of the British archives.
He has facilitated the task of historians who might wish to tackle the task of studying the career of one of the most interesting figures in Iranian contemporary history.
What Mr. Ghani offers, however, is not history.
This is not surprising because Mr. Ghani, a coprorate lawyer by training and profession, is no historian.
There was, of course, a time when every retired gentleman dabbled in history as a hobby. But the age of amateur historian is long over.
Reza Khan, who later became Reza Shah, cannot be understood, analysed and ultimately judged on the basis of a few documents from one single foreign power with interests in Iran.
Mr. Ghani has ignored the mass of literature that exists on Reza in Persian, Russian, French, Turkish and other languages. He also makes no mention of the official documents of the Iranian state itself. Nor has he bothered to interview the people who worked with Reza Khan(Shah) or knew him at various phases of his life. ( Many were still around when Ghani began his complilation. Some still are)
The local Persian bookshop here has a list of almost 200 memoirs written by Iranians and others with some beairg on the life and career of Reza Shah. Ghani mentions none of them. His faith in the British documents as the ultimate truth is susprising to say the least.
More importantly, Ghani is simply unable to analyse the facts that the British documents report. He has no idea why things happened the way they did and no views on their impact on the course of Iranian history.
Let us hope that trained and professional historians will assume the important task of producing a good biography of Reza Shah, the man whose legacy is still felt in many aspects of Iranian life.In the meantime Ghani deserves thanks for having done part of the work that a dilligent research assistant would do for a historian.
A READER IN PARIS, FRANCE

IRAN AND THE RISE OF REZA SHAH, a most informative and meticulously researched enterprise undertaken by Cyrus Ghani, is an accurate history of the period, without embellishment, that amirably fills the general void in impartiality on this subject in recent years. The stellar dramatis personae in this admirable book, admired or reviled by contempoarary Iranians, have been very objectively treated by the author, who follows in the steps of his late father, Dr. Ghassem Ghani, a distinguished diplomat and writer himself. The historian, researchher or writer will have much to learn and gain by this book. It should be a must in libraries and centers of education. Yousof A. Mazandi

I enjoyed reading this book precisely because it was based on official archives of the British government. While I agree with Mr. Dezfooli's view of the British archives (elaborated in the customer reviews below as partial and one sided), I believe it was important that finally a scholar of Iranian studies has come along to compile the British official mentality. Albeit a "partial or misleading" account that Her Majesty's archives maintain, nonetheless it was the view of a key player in Persian politics at that time. It was that mentality which directed British foreign policy. This neither discounts Persian, Ottoman, or Russian, archives, nor does it lessen the value of Ghani's research. The fact remains that Cyrus Ghani has compiled, and introduced a fresh new work which is concretely documented. Like it or not, it will be here to make all of us think and re-think our Ahmad Shah and Reza Shah histories.

What I find most interesting is that this work has sparked such a passionate dialogue amongst Persians and experts on Persian history. Just one look at the customer reviews below and one can't help notice the love/hate opinions readers have formed on this work. This is something quite refreshing. This book certainly does not deserve anything less than four stars. It is the result of a great deal of effort and its material was put together in excellent order to give the reader a very good picture of the conditions which led to the rise of Reza Shah Pahlavi. I agree with the assertion that the book is very factual and has a marginal story to compliment its facts. However, I also agree with other readers who believe the book is of superior academic value.

Like Mr. Parandeh (reader's review listed below) I too am astonished at some of the reasons why Ghani has been criticized; "Oriental history writing," or experts who couldn't find their own work in the bibliography. But to discount the author because he was educated in the west or that he may have taken a British or American wife is really appalling to say the least. Look, one cannot discount a researcher's work because he or she is "oriental," because they reside in London, or they were educated in the west. None of this has any bearing on the work. If this were the case, then I suppose the literary universe should tear up Solzhenitsyn because he elected to live in the West.

I only know Mr. Ghani's through this work. I don't know where he was educated, if his wife is British, or even if he is a citizen of Iran. Frankly I don't care. It is irrelevant. I just want to say the book is highly thought provoking and it is quite new. I loved it and really enjoyed all that I learned from it. It may not be a story book, but it sure can be a text book on colonial England's foreign policy.

Cyrus Ghani's main claim for his volumnious book is that he has had access to His Britannic Majesty's archives on the subject. The question is : what does he do with the archive material? He acts as a pair of scissors and a spool of Scotch tape, cutting and pasting. Events are reported in all their crudness. But there is absolutely no analysis, except observations made by British diplomats serving in Iran or commenting on events in Iran from the safety of White Hall. Ghani's technique is one of collage, which has adepts in popular art. History, however, requires something more : a vision, a capacity to understand events and to find the invivisble threads that gives them sequentiality. Another problem is that Ghani assumes that whatever comes from His Britannic Majesty's archives is gospel truth. There is no checking and cross checking with the archives of oher powers, including Iran itself. So profound is his contempt for the Iranian state, and people, that he never once bothers to compare an official Iranian account with a British one. Gani, of course, shows little interest in the rich archives of Russia, both pre- and post-Bolshevik, the United States, France and the Ottoman Empire. For Ghani there is only one truth, and that is official British. Needless to say British official accounts of world events have long been subjected to criticism by the more respected British historians. At best the British colonial view of the world can be regarded as one version of the facts- not the only one. Reputable British historians have shown how partial, misleading and , often, dishonest some of the official accounts have been over the years. No serious historian would now base his account of so complex an episode in Iranian history, as the rise of Reza Khan and the downfall of the Qajar dynasty, on so narrow, partial and often plain wrong account of events. I have noted more than 30 events, narrated in the book, where the British official account can easily be shown to be either partial or deliberately misleading not to say mischievous. I have decided to give Ghani's book one star for a simple reason: he offers future historians a survey of the material available in the British archives, thus facilitating their task. One point worth noting is that Ghani's book could also be read as an example of the self-loathing that his generation of Iranians long felt, bedazzled as they were by what looked like the grand glory of the West, especially Britain and the United States. Iran never became an official colony like India. But some Iranian families, especially in the smaller towns and among what Marxists would call the petite-bourgeoisie, adopted the mentality of the colonised. They developed self-loathing , learned to distrust their own people, and did all they could to ape the " master race", to the point of studying in Britain or the US and taking British or American spouses. In time they became sevrants of the colonial apparatus in Iran, mostly by working for Western companies. This state of mind, found in most former colonies and semi-colonies such as Iran, is present, albeit in filigrane, throughout Ghani's collage. He simply cannot imagine that Reza Khan might have been a patriot, a heroic character, a true Iranian seeking to restore his nation's grandeur against the heaviest odds. Only the British can be heroic and " create" history, whatever that may mean. Iranians are doomed to be objects, not subjects, even in their own life story. A good biography of Reza Khan, later Reza Shah the Great, remains to be written, and is a vital necessity as Iran begins to finds its way out of its turmoil of the past two decades. Such a biography must be written from the Iranian point of view, while using all the material, official and unofficial, available from all relevant sources. Ghani may be a keen student of archives and an enthusiastic compiler. But he is no historian. His inability to analyse, his shaky language, his ignorance of the tools and terminology of history disqualify him from the start. But he deserves a pat on the shoulder for having revived interest in an important period in Iran's contemporary history. One can hope that other competent historians, and there are many of Iranian origin in Western countries, would take the challenge and succeed where Ghani has so heroically failed. Mohammad T. Dezfooli, London