What we like to read

The Shah is an interesting book. It shows a torn man who stood in the shadow of his father, increasingly lost touch with reality over the course of his life, and ultimately, through his authoritarian politics, brought his successors into office.

Abbas Milani is an Iranian-born scholar who was also a political prisoner during the monarchy. This may partly explain his negative stance towards the last Shah.

Though his monarchy was toppled in 1979 and he died in 1980, the life of Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlevi, the last Shah of Iran, continues to resonate today. Here, internationally respected author Abbas Milani gives us the definitive biography, more than ten years in the making, of the monarch who shaped Iran’s modern age and with it the contemporary politics of the Middle East. The Shah’s was a life filled with contradictions – as a social reformer he built schools, increased equality for women, and greatly reduced the power of the Shia clergy. He made Iran a global power, courting Western leaders from Churchill to Carter, and nationalized his country’s many natural resources. But he was deeply conflicted and insecure in his powerful role. Intolerant of political dissent, he was eventually overthrown by the very people whose loyalty he so desperately sought.