Days of God: The Revolution in Iran and Its Consequences

Great history of Iran from origins of Pahlavi state (Shah of Iran) to early 21st century from an author that was present in Iran from 1979 revolution on. The first half of the book is a difficult read for a Westerner, trying to keep names straight (impossible for me) and trying to understand the Eastern view of religion and politics, almost incomprehensible.Buchan covers the three major rulers very well: Mossadeq, Mohammed Reza (Shah), and Ayatollah Khomeini (and successors). He makes sense of the Iran/Iraq War. He really tells all of the convoluted, ridiculous Iran Contra scandal. The hostage crisis is covered and shows how Carter's administration and British had plenty of warning to remove Embassy personnel from a country out of control. He describes how Khomeini's rule was SO much bloodier than the Shah's. Iran's obsession with nuclear weapons are covered and makes perfect sense.

Iran's Islamic revolution has its roots in the early 20th century and also going back a thousand years to the birth of Islam. One of the more interesting aspects is the parallels we can draw to other fundamentalist revolutions across time and space - such as Christian Europe during the Middle and Late Middle Ages, and secular movements such as Maoism, Stalinism, and even National Socialism.Buchan does a credible job but the book could have been much better organized to help the reader track the relationships of so many different people through time. I feel the book fell far short in supplying reader friendly aids such as a cast of characters, a timeline, maps, Islamic doctrinal touchstones, photographs anchored to the appropriate places in the text, etc. Too many of these disparate elements are sprinkled through the book leaving the reader to try to sort it all out and discover the deeper historical meanings. I feel like I got a flavor of the events, but not a true understanding of all the most relevant relationships. We should get more from a professional journalist.

"Is that the sound of firecrackers, Mom?""No. That's the sound of bullets, Ali. You should stay inside."That was my first revolution, in January 1979. We lived in the upper-middle class North Tehran neighborhood of Saltanat Abad ("Monarchyville"), but I could still hear the report of gunshots from Jaleh Square far south. What were people fighting over? To a kid, it didn't make any sense.The standard narrative of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 reads something like this: The Shah was a dictator who did a fair amount to build up and reform the country, but was also profligate and repressive. He used the Savak, his secret Police, to silence and torture dissenters. Eventually, his time came up, and a monolithic popular uprising brought Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini, a.k.a the Ayatollah, to power.That's not even close to the whole murky, thrilling and heartbreaking story.James Buchan was a student in Tehran in 1973. From that vantage point, he observed firsthand the gradual unraveling of the regime of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi - "the Shah" - and the forces involved in it. Fluent in Persian, he has consulted hundreds of sources to reconstruct meticulously the 20th-century history of Iran - from before the ascension of Reza Shah, Mohammad Reza's father, to the events culminating in the Revolution of February 1979, to the ceasefire of the Iran-Iraq war in 1989. Buchan understands the variables at play in the Shah's ouster:"It is hard to say at what moment it became clear that Mohammed Reza would go. With the center of his regime disintegrated, both extremes of it required him off the stage: whether for a civilian government headed by an elder statesman or moderate oppositionist, or so the army in the manner of 1953 `rectify the situation.' Few knew of the Shah's illness, but he appeared to be badly in need of rest on the Caspian, or Kish Island or at Bandar Abbas, where, as Mohammed Reza put it later, he could `visit his navy.'"To this day, people argue over what actually happened in Iran during those times of tumult. Who was responsible for the 1953 coup ousting the popular premier Mossadegh? Why didn't the Shah suppress his opponents when he had the time, resources and political capital? Who set fire to the Rex Cinema in Abadan, killing 400 people and triggering the cascade of events leading to the Shah's abdication? (Answer: a lone, bored twentysomething religious fanatic and drug dealer, who later turned himself in out of unbearable guilt). How did Khomeini, in exile for 14 years, overnight and seemingly unanimously become the leader of the disparate opposition factions? Who decided to take the US Embassy hostages and hold them for 444 days? (Rogue unauthorized students - one of whom a young President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - whose cause the revolutionary leaders retroactively co-opted.) What really happened with Iran-Contra?Out of disparate, scattered and conflicting sources, Buchan constructs a narrative of modern Iranian history that is the most historically accurate I have encountered. It is a magisterial account of all the different forces pulling at Iran's soul over the course of a century: murderous neighbors, foreign superpowers, oil, greed, imperial ambition, Shi'a Islam, and deeply flawed actors invested with too much power and not enough principle.It's a riveting account and a real-life thriller - especially if you were a boy who lived through the decline and fall of the Shah, the rise of the Islamic Republic, and the Iran-Iraq war. Today, 34 years later, I finally realize how little I understood of what happened in that swirl of passion, gunfire and fate that was the Iranian Revolution. For example:--Outside of Tehran, the average Iranian is far more religious than I had imagined. Shi'a Islam dominates their minds in a literal, unquestioning way as Christianity does the American Bible Belt.--The revolution started out with democratic intention and then, echoing 1789 France, quickly morphed into a bloody, autocratic one.--Far from being a bullying dictator, the Shah's cardinal sin was "discomfort wielding power," directly leading to his demise.What broke my heart reading this book were the accounts of near-misses and dumb luck that could have dramatically shifted the fortunes of Iran. For example:--In 1978, the Rex Cinema arson and a 7.8 Richter earthquake killing thousands in the provinces happened in rapid succession. The opposition blamed the regime for both, fanning the fires of foment.--At the same time, the Shah contracted lymphoma, and his doctors hid it from him, delaying treatment for an already weakened, vacillating man.--Khomeini almost got crushed by the crowd of welcomers upon his arrival from exile in Tehran. Were it not for a helicopter that materialized deus ex machina, the 76-year old leader would have perished on the first day of the Revolution.--Khomeini's designated successor and favorite student, Montazeri, openly criticized Khomeini for the torture and mass murder of political prisoners. Furious, Khomeini disowned and banished him and picked the far less moderate Ali Khamene'i as his regent, who has been the bugbear of the West ever since.--And in 1982, Saddam Hussein offered Khomeini a cease-fire -- plain admission of defeat. Khomeini rejected it; hundreds of thousands of young men perished for 7 more years of pointless war.Khomeini died in June 1989, soon after the end of that war. Buchan's account of the funeral encapsulates the events of the book and all of Iranian history:"Amid clouds of dust and in blinding heat, the Tehran fire brigade sprayed the mourners with jets of water, both to calm the excitement and also as an element of ritual. Iranian history is a sort of passion play, a constant recitation of the foundation tragedy of Shi'a Islam, which is the Prophet's family, ringed by murderous enemies and tormented by heat and thirst, at Karbala in Iraq in October 680. Many in the crowd were mourning not a revolutionary leader or a canon juris, but the "Imam," a title applied in Iran up to then only to the perfect Shi'a saints of the Middle Ages."I managed to escape that war in 1985, when the rain of Saddam's bombs on Tehran could no longer be sanely ignored. We restarted from zero in West Los Angeles, where this once-pampered kid had to share a bedroom with his mother. To support us, she talked herself into a job as a seamstress at the only laundromat that didn't ask for her Green Card. I got into Harvard and turned out okay. In the meantime, a kind, hospitable and ingenious people were set back a century and consigned to status of pariah nation for the next 34 years.The best history is the kind that bears useful instruction for its living readers, and Days of God is such a book. I'm grateful for James Buchan's lucid account, which provides a salve of understanding for both the bereaved Iranians who lived through the Revolution, and the rest of the world that feels its aftershocks to this day.

i have read about a half dozen books which cover this same time period & i rated them all four or five stars; however, buchan's book is the best by far, most informative, best written covering time period from before first palavi shah, thru rise & fall of last shah and the rise of kholmeni til his death in 1989 with some info since in epilogue; also has some good insight into iraq/iran war but does best detailed account of the 1978-81 time period compared to the other books i have read; tells of events from all sides, i.e. iran, USA, israel, iraq others; i recomend this book highly for anyone who wants to know more about this important time period which still effects world events today

an excellent summary of the modern history of Iran that helps the reader understand the forces behind this nation today. The book is surprisingly sympathetic to the Shah who has at least been made to seem humane by the monstrous regime that followed. As someone who is just old enough to remember the momentous months at the end of his regime it was fascinating to compare my memory of the events to the much more detailed description in this book.

and vividly remember the hostage crisis. This book does a nice job of giving an overview of the events leading to Iran as it exists today, ranging from the early days of the Shah to the present.

A detailed, factual, and objective contemporary history of Iran. A must read for anybody who is interested in knowing about Iran's recent history. Buchan have particularly done a great work in showing the interrelationship between different events. By far the best book I have read on the subject so far. Very well done Mr. Buchan.

Excellent, recommended seller.