All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror Paperback – January 1, 2008

All the Shah,a Men is by far the best book I have read in a number of years. It is a must reading for everyone even if not particularly concerned with history or politics. The book reads like a suspenseful intrigue spy novel making it hard to stop reading. As an Egyptian it made it clear why Britain and Fran e got so mad when Egypt,s Naser nationalized the Suez Canal only five years after Mosadeq nationalized the Iranian oil and how succeeding in removing him may ha e emboldened them to militarily attack Egypt. Even more importantly the Book increased my appreciation to President Truman vision and integrity but not so much for Eisenhower. Finally, the fact that Iran was on it's way to Democracy and instead of supporting it the effort was thwarted resulting in the current severe suffering of the Iranian people. I cannot recommend the book more for E vereone

To write a good history book like this one an author needs to do well in three separate areas. He needs to research the topic at hand, write a readable account and finally analyze the events. Kinzer performs exceptionally well in all three areas. First, the book is meticulously researched. He discusses appropriate history without going into unnecessary or boring details to give the reader an appropriate context and background leading up to the 1953 coup. He also uses a diverse set of resources which leaves no holes in the story.Second, Kinzer's writing is engaging and at times suspenseful. In fact at the end of many chapters, I was unable to put the book aside and take a break from reading due to the suspense Kinzer created. The story is very easy to follow and the reader needs practically no background to follow the events. This is particularly impressive given the relative short length of the book. My only criticism is that I wished he had summarized the cast of characters in an appendix or in the beginning as many similar books do.Finally, his analysis, while many have called too liberal, is even handed. He makes a leap by implying that 9/11 events may have not happened if it weren't for the 1953 CIA led coup. Of course we will never know for sure. He supports his claims convincingly that the coup led to the eventual 1979 hostage crisis and the anti-American feelings in the Middle East. Liberal bias? The facts speak for themselves. The CIA using American tax payer money to overthrow a popular and democratically elected government. We, in the USA, would not appreciate if foreigners overthrew our government so why have a double standard? Perhaps Mossadegh is being glorified too much and ultimately he would have led Iran towards the wrong path, but the point remains that we will never know thanks to the coup. Kinzer does entertain the possibilities that Mossadegh would have been terrible for Iran and the West so I reject the idea that he has a strong liberal bias.If you, like me, find the "Death to USA" chants and hostage taking barbaric and puzzling, this book will offer you fresh insights and help you understand the roots of these actions. You will become a lot smarter and more knowledgeable about the Middle East after reading it. I highly recommend this book.

FTC NOTICE: Library BookREVIEW: “All the Shah’s Men” serves as the second book I have read by Stephen Kinzer, and it was full of intrigue, micro-histories, and biographies that left me with the desire to research and read more about the Middle East as well as additional books by this author.It is not unusual for history books to discuss timelines and people; but, what I appreciated most in this text was Kinzer’s differing approach to historical data. He was generous with details about a significant array of people that were involved with multiple coups. There were names of people in his book that I did not recall seeing in other compendiums pertaining to Middle East history and/or Iran. Kinzer shared what their individual philosophies were and how they affected their decisions and the resulting behaviors.One challenge I experienced while reading this book, and that which prevented me from giving it five stars in lieu of four of them, was that there was too much going back and forth in history. A political leader’s history and interactions with others was/were very well described; but, at the end of that history, the reader was then re-introduced to a character at the beginning or middle of the previous history and all within the same chapter. Segmentation via a few extra and short chapters would have helped.Despite the back-and-forth of histories, Stephen Kinzer has a great way of making a reader take a look at a situation and evaluate what could have been done differently. Unfortunately, he waited until over 200 pages into the book for any analysis or extrapolation to occur. This was coupled with a whole series of “if” and “if” and “if-then” and “if.” In doing so, Kinzer inadvertently de-valued what he was trying to accomplish, and the history could no longer be evaluated as a reality. Thankfully I had already read another book called "Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future" by Kinzer, so I knew what he was trying to accomplish, and I didn’t want him to think that this was lost on me. He wanted the reader to imagine how things could have been done differently; what would have happened if one or all of these things did not occur?The author is also quite talented when it comes to creating imagery. He does this thoughtfully, purposely, and respectfully. Kinzer shares the details of his trip to Iran and his visit to Mossadegh’s final home. There are descriptions of colors, flowers, and buildings, and he places them in the context of what they experienced and looked like in history and how they had changed by the time of his visit. There is a certain romanticism about how he goes about interviewing people who were employees, villagers/neighbors, friends and family of Mossadegh. Stephen Kinzer makes it clear that with the Mossadegh name, there is a legacy, and there is a responsibility to keep the name pure.Purity and the instability of relationships were prevalent themes in this book. The intelligence that the American government received was not consistently pure. There were people who wanted to make a name for themselves and leveraged “The Cold War” and its threat of spreading communism as a way to convince an American president that it was time to start supporting the British government in its efforts to take back Iran’s newly-nationalized oil company. Kinzer did a good job of “calling out” these people, namely The Dulles Brothers.There were good people on all sides who had good intentions, and they were coupled with individuals or groups filled with mal-intent, which ultimately led to a surpise coup of Mohammed Reza Shah and the promotion to leadership and ultimate power of and for the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. There were well-described changes in alliances that ultimately put the United States in an unsavory position with countries in the Middle East…definitely an unfortunate stance and one that can hopefully be corrected.

Great book on not just why the earlier revolutions happened but on Iran’s history early 1900’s. Great depiction on Mossadeg as well and why the 1979 revolution was doomed to happen