The Shah's Last Ride [Paperback]

William Shawcross (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone (October 15, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067168745X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671687458
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #526,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent, balanced account, October 12, 2004

By 

jmm "jmm1103" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Shah's Last Ride (Paperback)

Shawcross is an excellent observer and journalist of international politics. His account of the Shah's final days is balanced, interesting, and clearly written. While it does provide considerable background on the recent (as of the book's publication) and longer-term history of Iran, that truly is background. Issues like the Ayatollah Khomeini's consolidation of power, and the hostage crisis, are treated only peripherally to the extent they are relevant to the strange odyssey on which the Shah embarked. There is, for example, for more information about the "political" bickering among the many physcians retained to treat the Shah's cancer than about American and international efforts to obtain the release of the hostages.
If you are looking for a book that provides a detailed analysis of the rise of the Iranian theocracy or the hostage crisis, I'm sure there are better-suited books out there. Taken on its terms, however, Shawcross' book is excellent.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Carter's Shame. Iran's Tragedy., May 13, 2011

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Devil's Advocate (Over your shoulder!) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Shah's Last Ride (Paperback)

The subtitle on the original publication of this book "The Fate of an Ally" is really a synopsis of the main focus of this book.
The factors leading up to the Shah's overthrow are dealt with less than the shameful and cowardly way in which his erstwhile allies turned on him once he had been deposed. Jimmy Carter comes across as particularly odious and dupilicitous, not to mention cowardly. The Shah maintained a regal dignity thoughout and died a horrible lonely death.
This book is one of those that will glue you to your seat for hours and ruin those plans you have to go to bed. I found it absolutely mesmerising, compulsive, thrilling...everything I look for in a book.
The cast of characters include, in addition to the stock politicians, Graham Greene, Manuel Noriega, Moshe Dyan, David Frost...etc. etc. Truly stranger than fiction.
Ironically enough, I found America's bogey man Manuel Noriega's observations on the Shah the most concise and inciteful: "he was programmed to see himself as an extraterrrestrial person, like the son of the Sun, not as a human being. A sort of divinity"
It was the Shah's great tragedy that he could not translate his vision of Iran to those peasants who eventually embraced the satanic Khomeini. People get the leaders they deserve but no one could wish that Islamic cancer on any civilisation. The Iranians may have made the Shah suffer in the short term through their short-sightedness but they suffer eternally in the hell that is present day Iran.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good, balanced account about the last Iran's Shah end, November 12, 2011

By 

Dalton C. Rocha (Fortaleza, CE, Brazil.) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Shah's Last Ride (Paperback)

I read this good book, here in Brazil.
Be care to not to have a deception, with this book. Never buy this book to really read, about the Iranian Islamic Revolution. Please, this book is more than 80% about the Shah's life after he left Iran and power on January, 1979. Yes, there's the chapters 2, 9, and 10 that are mainly about Iran before the Shah's fall. Chapter 11, I thought as the best in all this book. The four best pages of his book are pages 402 to 405, telling about the Shah's death in Egypt.
Six great things of this book:
1- This book is really unbiased. It tells about what happened with the Shah, after he left the power and Iran.
2- This book really tells how small were the real Shah's friends.
3- The Shah's defects, including his corruption and being a womanizer, before he left the power is really described.
4- Defects and crimes of Shah's family are described. His twin sister, former princess Ashraf is described how she made bad and good things. The Shah's last wife, the Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi (born Farah Diba) is described into good words, about that woman and last Shahbanu of the world. Shahbanu is the wife of Shah.
5- This book tells how shunned became the Shah, after he fall from power.
6- Even being writen on 1988, this book isn't outdated about the Shah's end.

Problems of this book are these:
1- This book isn't linear, except on its last half.
2- I wanted more information about the six months before the fall of the Shah.