Six Books to Get Your Head Inside Iran
Want to get the inside skinney on Iran? Here are six books to get you there.
First, not surprisingly, is The House That War Minister Built. Learn that what really goes on in the harem is not sex, but intrigue. See how modern Persians reconcile their legacy from Cyrus the Great, conqueror and early civil rights advocate, with their present status as third world pariah. The House That War Minister Built was just named a Kirkus “Best of 2011” book.
Second, Garden of the Brave in War, Recollections of Iran, by Terrence O’Donnell, paints a vivid tableau of the Iranian character: tolerant, generous, mirthful, capricious and devious – from beggars to voluptuaries, a people far removed from the puritanical fanaticism portrayed in the West. In these memoirs you will encounter a range of characters, from servants whose intrusiveness derives from caring, to feudal princes who adopt peasant children to raise as their own. You will learn the truth to the old Persian saw that a missionary once complained of spending fifty years in Iran without a single convert. “Don’t worry,” an Iranian friend consoled him, “Mohammed didn’t get any either.”
Third, in Blood and Oil, Memoirs of a Persian Prince, Manucher Farmanfarmaian, a scion of the country’s most famous family and one time Oil Minister under the Shah, examines a considerable chunk of modern Persian history through the prism of oil politics, in which his family played a major role. Much of the information is surprising and counter intuitive. Did you know, for instance, that the hue and cry raised by the British over Iran’s nationalization of their oil company in the 1950s (leading to a CIA-sponsored coup) masked crocodile tears? Did you know that only a decade later President Kennedy’s well-intended populist policies first raised Ayatollah Khomeini to national prominence?
Fourth, speaking of the 1953 CIA coup, which toppled the democratically elected regime of Mossadegh, did you know that it was led by our man in Tehran, Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Teddy? Find out more by reading Stephen Kinzer’s All The Shah’s Men, An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. Operation Ajax was the first time the United States Government toppled a Middle Eastern government. The resulting restoration of Mohammad Reza Shah to the Peacock throne allowed a tyranny that led to the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and much of the Islamic terrorism that plagues the world today.
Fifth, on a lighter note, to savor the visual pleasures of Iran, browse through the splendid Persia, Bridge of Turquoise, a coffee table masterpiece featuring stunning photographs by Roloff Beny, and an interesting forward by Seyeed Nasr on Iranian culture and religion. This book is out of print, but worth tracking down for the photographs alone.
Finally, for insight into the tragic general failure of Islam to keep up with the West, you can’t miss Bernard Lewis’s What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. This renowned Princeton scholar examines the multitude of forces that led the once dominant Islam, for centuries the vanguard of world power and learning, to tumble into an abyss of backwardness. Not the least of their errors was one to which we may fall victim ourselves: failure to learn from those we disregard.