Customer Reviews

Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah

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The author of this book is an American academic who visited Iran in the 1970s and wrote an interesting research paper on the political elite under the Shah.
In " Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah", Zonis revises and expands some of his conclusions in that earlier research.
Zonis seems to believe that the Shah's fall was almost solely his own fault , and not a result, at least in part, of the activities of the mighty coalition of forces ranged against his regime- from the Soviet bloc to radical mullahs to European and American leftists.
Thus the entire book is structured in a way to show the Shah's regime as one programmed to end in disaster. It is as if , writing about a man who has been killed in a car crash, we blame him for having been unkind to his mother-in-law or having spent too much time on a golf course.
A more balanced account of the Shah's eventual fall can be found in William Shawcross's " The Shah's Last Ride: The Betrayal of An Ally" which shows the callous way in which successive American administrations dealt with Iran and its leader.
A more accessible, and ultimately more informative, account of the Shah's turbulent reign is offered in Amir Taheri's " The Unknown Life of the Shah".
For an understanding of the Shah's foreign policy go to James Alban Bill's " The Eagle and the Lion".
As far as this reveiwer is concerned there is still room for several more books on the Shah. A READER IN HAMPSTEAD

An absolutely fabulous book combining both psychoanalytical and political perspectives. Written in lively prose, Zonis looks at the rise and fall of a larger than life man, offering a fair and balanced look at his strengths and weaknesses.