Iran and the Rise of the Reza Shah : From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power

Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate in Dullness
Review: As an outsider interested in Iran- thanks to Iranians friends- I was keen to learn more about a king who is regarded by many Iranians as the only leader worthy of respect the country has had for centuries.
In fact, my Iranian friends insist that only someone like Rez Shah could save their country from its current decline, and restore it to the path of progress and civilization.
The subject, therefore, must be exciting.
This book, however, is the very essence of dullness. It is as if the writer designed it to make the subject uninteresting.
There are large chunks of reports from the British diplomatic archives, little independent narrative, and no analysis whatsoever.
Worse still the author's prose is schoolboyish while the book seems to have not passed through the process of copy-reading and editing. It is full of factual and grammatical errors.
I dropped the book several times but made efforts to return to it. In the end the whole excercise was too much.
Please,please, pleeeeeeze, someone write a readable biography of Reza Shah! WV

Rating:
Summary: Incredible. A must for Reza Shah readers.
Review: I enjoyed reading this book precisely because it was based on official archives of the British government. While I agree with Mr. Dezfooli's view of the British archives (elaborated in the customer reviews below as partial and one sided), I believe it was important that finally a scholar of Iranian studies has come along to compile the British official mentality. Albeit a "partial or misleading" account that Her Majesty's archives maintain, nonetheless it was the view of a key player in Persian politics at that time. It was that mentality which directed British foreign policy. This neither discounts Persian, Ottoman, or Russian, archives, nor does it lessen the value of Ghani's research. The fact remains that Cyrus Ghani has compiled, and introduced a fresh new work which is concretely documented. Like it or not, it will be here to make all of us think and re-think our Ahmad Shah and Reza Shah histories.

What I find most interesting is that this work has sparked such a passionate dialogue amongst Persians and experts on Persian history. Just one look at the customer reviews below and one can't help notice the love/hate opinions readers have formed on this work. This is something quite refreshing. This book certainly does not deserve anything less than four stars. It is the result of a great deal of effort and its material was put together in excellent order to give the reader a very good picture of the conditions which led to the rise of Reza Shah Pahlavi. I agree with the assertion that the book is very factual and has a marginal story to compliment its facts. However, I also agree with other readers who believe the book is of superior academic value.

Like Mr. Parandeh (reader's review listed below) I too am astonished at some of the reasons why Ghani has been criticized; "Oriental history writing," or experts who couldn't find their own work in the bibliography. But to discount the author because he was educated in the west or that he may have taken a British or American wife is really appalling to say the least. Look, one cannot discount a researcher's work because he or she is "oriental," because they reside in London, or they were educated in the west. None of this has any bearing on the work. If this were the case, then I suppose the literary universe should tear up Solzhenitsyn because he elected to live in the West.

I only know Mr. Ghani's through this work. I don't know where he was educated, if his wife is British, or even if he is a citizen of Iran. Frankly I don't care. It is irrelevant. I just want to say the book is highly thought provoking and it is quite new. I loved it and really enjoyed all that I learned from it. It may not be a story book, but it sure can be a text book on colonial England's foreign policy.

Rating:
Summary: Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah : From Qajar Collapse to
Review: I read this book in both English and Farsi just to compare and also to refresh my mind with all the detail it provided. Call it strange, but I did not find a dull sentence in this book, nor did I think the material was just a cut and paste collage. C. Ghani has systematically presented material that needs time to be absorbed by our current knowledge of this issue. I think the book is excellent. Perhaps all the controversy would be eliminated if the book's title would have been, "Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah Based on The Archives of Imperialist England," or something like that.

I would suggest this book to anyone who has an interest in Reza Khan. I would hope that a similar book would be written based on the archives of Russia or Belgium as various readers have suggested, but that does not mean this book is not a grand contribution. I would like very much to read Eric Laurey's "Belge En Perzie." Maybe instead of criticzing Mr. Ghani, he should translate his work into English so that more people could read it. I for one would be very interested in reading the Belgian point of view.

As I browsed through the comments posted on this page, I kept wondering what all the controversy was about surrounding this book. From my point of view, all the criticism this book has received so far rests on very false foundations. I am very disappointed to see that in this stage of human history, people still molest a scholar calling his work `oriental history writing.' I'm so pleased to see that I am not the only person to be taken aback by this extremist remark. Maybe it is time that we too asked people to address our scholars with respect. Isn't it funny how every time an Iranian writes a book, someone from England employs this phrase to discount their effort (A similar comment is on Farmanfarmaian's book, Blood and Oil)? Why is that?

Rating:
Summary: BE MORE KIND
Review: In Iran, as throughout the Middle East, the First World War and its aftermath was the crucial era of change. The timetable was a bit slower, for Iran was less directly affected by the exigencies of battle than the countries to its West, but the impact was no less great. As the subtitle signals, Ghani symbolizes the change via the monarchy: the last Qajar, Ahmad Shah, was an "irresolute, pleasure-seeking young man who came to the throne through an accident of birth," whereas Reza Shah was quite the opposite. Ghani writes of "his stern appearance, rarely a smile on his face, and his outbursts of anger even in public," and deems him "straight-laced, taciturn and a moralist."

Ghani, a legal consultant and a bibliophile (he makes the astonishing assertion that "Almost all the books I have relied on [to research Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah] were in my own library"), is a first-class historian who in a clear manner explains the intricate process by which the British in 1921 almost accidentally pulled off a coup d'état that set in process the steps that led to dynastic change and the bumpy ride that would be the Pahlavi period. Perhaps most interesting from the vantage point of six decades later is how Reza Shah's reign foreshadowed so many of the problems that his son Mohammad Reza Shah would later encounter, including his autocracy, suspiciousness, obsession with security, difficult relations with the Islamic hierarchy, and misunderstanding of the Western vs. Soviet dynamic.

Middle East Quarterly, December 1999

Rating:
Summary: GREATEST FIGURE IN IRAN'S CONTEMPORARY HISTORY
Review: Reza Shah Pahlavi, the man who founded the last monarchic dynasty in Iran's long history, was, by all accounts the greatest public figure of his nation in the 20th century.
His rise from a modest background- he was a semi-literate son of a poor peasant family- to kingship is the stuff of dreams.
His success in reuniting Iran and transforming it from a ramshackle feudal state into a modern one is almost incredible.
Thus his life should have provided the material for a highly readable biography.
Sadly this is not the case with Mr. Ghani's hefty book.
Ghani has managed to make an exciting life sound almost dull.
He has also failed to analyse any of the events he reports, almost exculively based on British archive material.
The story of Reza Shah is still waiting to be written by a real biographer.
J. Sherian

Rating:
Summary: BE MORE KIND
Review: Some readers of this book appear too harsh on the author.
The book is certainly not the pinnacle of the art of biography. Ghani's prose is hesitant, almost amateurish. The book is also full of factual errors and tedious repetitions.
But the subject, a soldier who rose to become the King of Kings of Iran, one of the oldest monarchies in the world, is fascinating enough to compensate for the author's weaknesses.
Also, Ghani must be commended for sifting through a mass of British official documents about a critical period in Iranian history. He has been unable to analyze the documents and point out their relevance to events. But the fact that he offers them in good order is no mean achievement.
I give Ghani's book two stars if only because he has created new interest in Reza Shah, one of the greatest figures of the 20th century Middle East.
Interested Reader

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book of history - not a biography
Review: This book is a must have for people interested in modern Iranian history.

As many reviewers fail to note, this book is an account of the RISE of Reza Shah and not a biography.
It offers a thoroughly researched account of the crucial period leading up to the fall of the corrupt Qajar dynasty, a period for which no books of this quality exist.
The book ends with the begining of the Pahlavi dynasty and only offers an epilogue on the achievements and failings of Reza Shah as king. It will leave you salivating for more on what happens in the next phase of history.

The tone and style of the book is academic and may turn some readers off, but the content will give readers a new perspective on where Iran came from why it is where it is today.