SHAH OF SHAHS (Szachinszach)

In “Shah of Shahs” Kapuscinski brings a mythographer’s perspective and a novelist’s virtuosity to bear on the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, one of the most infamous of the United State’s client-dictators, who resolved to transform his country into “a second America in a generation,” only to be toppled virtually overnight. From his vantage point at the break-up ot the old regime, Kapuscinski gives us a compelling history of conspiracy, repression, fanaticism, and revolution.