What we're reading, part 1: "Shah of Shahs"

Shah of Shahs - Ryszard Kapuscinski

I'd picked up this book on the recommendation of a friend, Fiona, before Aisling and I decided to visit Iran. I saw the book in Fiona's reading stack. It caught my attention because Kapuscinski had recently died. Fiona let me know just what a powerful writer he was and recommended this particular book to me.

It's a slim book, written almost like a meditation. Kapuscinski sits in his hotel room, in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. He brings the reader on a journey through the previous few years of Iranian history.

The Shah attempts to buy his country into modernity by profligate spending on military and petrochemical hardware and contracts to foreign specialists. The ordinary people of Iran see no benefit from any of this; they are cowed into submission by the vicious secret service. Disenchantment grows and grows, spurred on by the violence the Shah uses to suppress the population. Politicised Imams are the rallying point, and it's they who take the reins of power as the Shah's regime collapses and he and his family flee Iran.