Patriot of Persia
In 1952 Time Magazine named the Iranian statesman Muhammad Mossadegh 'man of the year' for daring to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the British enterprise that controlled Iran's most precious commodity. In doing so he provoked the enmity of the British and their American allies while his democratic instincts brought him into conflict with Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi. Mossadegh's aspirations of national liberation came crashing down in August 1953 when he was toppled in a covert operation by the CIA and MI6. Christopher's biography of this brilliant, wayward patriot depicts Mossadegh in all his complexity and includes a thrilling account of the coup that entrenched the Shah's despotism and laid the ground for the 1979 revolution.
Brilliant ... deft ... De Bellaigue, fluent in Farsi, draws on previously unused Iranian sources to bring Mossadegh to vivid life ... De Bellaigue's powerful portrait is also a timely reminder that further Western recklessness toward Iran ... would only pile tragedy upon tragedy.
— Roger Cohen, the New York Review of Books
Winner, Washington Institute Prize for outstanding scholarship on the Middle East.