Guests Of The Ayatollah

Author : Mark Bowden
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Page : 710 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2007-12-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781555846084

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Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden Pdf

The New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down delivers a “suspenseful and inspiring” account of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 (The Wall Street Journal). On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans captive, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages’ cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly recreated, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world. “The passions of the moment still reverberate . . . you can feel them on every page.” —Time “A complex story full of cruelty, heroism, foolishness and tragic misunderstandings.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Essential reading . . . A.” —Entertainment Weekly

Author : Hooman Majd
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2009-07-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780767928014

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The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd Pdf

Including a new preface that discusses the Iranian mood during and after the June 2009 presidential election and subsequent protests, this is an intimate look at a paradoxical country from a uniquely qualified journalist. The grandson of an eminent ayatollah and the son of an Iranian diplomat, Hooman Majd offers perspective on Iran's complex and misunderstood culture through an insightful tour of Iranian culture, introducing fascinating characters from all walks of life, including zealous government officials, tough female cab drivers, and open-minded, reformist ayatollahs. It's an Iran that will surprise readers and challenge Western stereotypes. A Los Angeles Times and Economist Best Book of the Year With a New Preface

Author : David Farber
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2009-01-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9781400826209

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Taken Hostage by David Farber Pdf

On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took sixty-six Americans captive. Thus began the Iran Hostage Crisis, an affair that captivated the American public for 444 days and marked America's first confrontation with the forces of radical Islam. Using hundreds of recently declassified government documents, historian David Farber takes the first in-depth look at the hostage crisis, examining its lessons for America's contemporary War on Terrorism. Unlike other histories of the subject, Farber's vivid and fast-paced narrative looks beyond the day-to-day circumstances of the crisis, using the events leading up to the ordeal as a means for understanding it. The book paints a portrait of the 1970s in the United States as an era of failed expectations in a nation plagued by uncertainty and anxiety. It reveals an American government ill prepared for the fall of the Shah of Iran and unable to reckon with the Ayatollah Khomeini and his militant Islamic followers. Farber's account is filled with fresh insights regarding the central players in the crisis: Khomeini emerges as an astute strategist, single-mindedly dedicated to creating an Islamic state. The Americans' student-captors appear as less-than-organized youths, having prepared for only a symbolic sit-in with just a three-day supply of food. ABC news chief Roone Arledge, newly installed and eager for ratings, is cited as a critical catalyst in elevating the hostages to cause célèbre status. Throughout the book there emerge eerie parallels to the current terrorism crisis. Then as now, Farber demonstrates, politicians failed to grasp the depth of anger that Islamic fundamentalists harbored toward the United States, and Americans dismissed threats from terrorist groups as the crusades of ineffectual madmen. Taken Hostage is a timely and revealing history of America's first engagement with terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, one that provides a chilling reminder that the past is only prologue.

Author : Hooman Majd
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2014-08-12
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780307946690

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The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay by Hooman Majd Pdf

In February 2011, Hooman Majd disembarked at the Tehran airport, a place he had passed through many times to visit family or accompany a news crew. But this time he had his wife, Karri; his infant son, Khash; and an oversize stroller in tow—and plans to stay for a year. Few American journalists gain entry to Iran; for Majd, the son of a diplomat under the shah and the grandson of an ayatollah, it would be the first time he had lived in his homeland since childhood. In The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay, he recounts both his family’s domestic adventures and a tumultuous year in Iranian politics. The result is an unforgettable portrait of an elusive country whose government, in the more than thirty years since its Islamic revolution, has been the United States’ most intractable nemesis.

Author : Warren Christopher,Harold H. Saunders,Gary Sick
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 443 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 1997-05-01
Category : History
ISBN : 078813969X

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American Hostages in Iran by Warren Christopher,Harold H. Saunders,Gary Sick Pdf

Was the Iranian hostage crisis the most humiliating episode in American history or was the eventual release of the hostages unharmed a triumph of patient, skilled diplomacy? In this book, the story of the negotiations is told by key Americans, inside & outside the government, who were intimately involved in the day-to-day search for an honorable settlement that would free the hostages. Drawing on their personal notes, journals, & files, the negotiators offer a rare insider's view of how the agonizing political, economic, military, & human choices were made.

Author : Shaul Bakhash
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 1985-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1850430039

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The Reign of the Ayatollahs by Shaul Bakhash Pdf

Author : Mark Bowden
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 680 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Hostages
ISBN : 0739475886

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Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden Pdf

A chronicle of the Iran hostage crisis, America's first battle with militant Islam. On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took 52 Americans hostage, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. Journalist Bowden tells the story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages' cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure.--From publisher description.

Author : Mark Bowden
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Page : 236 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2012-10-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9780802194107

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The Finish by Mark Bowden Pdf

New York Times bestseller: The true behind-the-scenes story of the manhunt for the 9/11 mastermind is “a page-turner” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). From the author of Black Hawk Down and Hue 1968, this is a gripping account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. With access to key sources, Mark Bowden takes us inside the rooms where decisions were made and on the ground where the action unfolded. After masterminding the attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden managed to vanish. Over the next ten years, as Bowden shows, America found that its war with al Qaeda—a scattered group of individuals who were almost impossible to track—demanded an innovative approach. Step by step, Bowden describes the development of a new tactical strategy to fight this war—the fusion of intel from various agencies and on-the-ground special ops. After thousands of special forces missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the right weapon to go after bin Laden had finally evolved. By spring 2011, intelligence pointed to a compound in Abbottabad; it was estimated that there was a 50/50 chance that Osama was there. Bowden shows how three strategies were mooted: a drone strike, a precision bombing, or an assault by Navy SEALs. In the end, the president had to make the final decision. It was time for the finish. “In-depth interviews with Obama and other insiders reveal a White House on edge, facing top-secret options, white-knuckle decisions, and unforeseen obstacles . . . Bowden weaves together accounts from Obama and top decision-makers for the full story behind the daring operation.” —Vanity Fair “The most accessible and satisfying book yet written on the climactic event in the United States’ long war against al Qaeda.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Author : Robert Dreyfuss,Thierry LeMarc
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 1980
Category : Iran
ISBN : STANFORD:36105081376753

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Hostage to Khomeini by Robert Dreyfuss,Thierry LeMarc Pdf

Author : John Ghazvinian
Publisher : Knopf
Page : 688 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2021
Category : History
ISBN : 9780307271815

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America and Iran by John Ghazvinian Pdf

"A history of the relationship between Iran and America from the 1700s through the current day"--

Author : Charles W. Scott
Publisher : Peachtree Junior
Page : 440 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 1984
Category : Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981
ISBN : UOM:39015008653852

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Pieces of the Game by Charles W. Scott Pdf

Colonel Charles W. Scott was one of the hostages captured and imprisoned in the American embassy in Tehran, Iran in November 1979. In this first-person account, he takes the reader through the entire crisis, including the preamble, the takeover, the internment, and the build-up to the release. One of the most fascinating aspects of the book is his description of his relationship with his captors. The Colonel's resolve both frustrates and impresses those imprisoning him. He spends his time analyzing and evaluating the Iranians, eventually forging something like a friendship with Akbar, an educated and reasonable Iranian who slowly grows frustrated with the hostage situation and engages with the Colonel in both personal and political discussions. A very readable supplement to the studies of the high politics surrounding the hostage crisis.

Author : Con Coughlin
Publisher : Pan Macmillan
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0230714552

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Khomeini's Ghost by Con Coughlin Pdf

This title shows how an impoverished young student from a remote area of southern Iran came to be the political and the spiritual leader of his country.

Author : Gary Sick
Publisher : Dissertation.com
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Iran
ISBN : 0595202535

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All Fall Down by Gary Sick Pdf

All Fall Down is the definitive chronicle of America’s experience with the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis of 1978-81. Drawing on internal government documents, it recounts the controversies, decisions and uncertainties that made this a unique chapter in modern American history. From his personal experiences, the author draws revealing portraits of the people who engaged in this test of wills with an Islamic revolutionary regime. A page one review in the New York Times Book Review praised it as “convincing, fair and balanced.”

Author : Roya Hakakian
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2011-09-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9780802195098

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Assassins of the Turquoise Palace by Roya Hakakian Pdf

A New York Times Notable Book: “A rumination on the Islamic Republic’s culture of terror . . . [A] captivating narrative” (PBS). On the evening of September 17, 1992, eight leading members of the Iranian and Kurdish opposition had gathered at a little-known restaurant in Berlin when two darkly-clad men burst through the entrance. Within moments, the roar of a machine gun filled the air. Two rounds of fire and four single shots later, four of the men were dead. One of the survivors of that shooting, along with the widow of one of the victims and a handful of reporters, attorneys, and fellow exiles, began a crusade that would not only pit them against Tehran but against some of the greatest powers in Germany. When an undeterred federal prosecutor and an endlessly patient chief judge took over the case, a historic verdict followed that shook both Europe and Iran, and achieved something few could have predicted—justice. “This is a brilliant, riveting book, with all the elements of a great thriller—a horrific crime, sociopathic villains, international intrigue, personal betrayals, a noble prosecutor and an honorable judge. And it is all too real: with remarkably comprehensive reporting and brisk, smart writing, Roya Hakakian has told a great story but, more important, she has made plain the lethal immorality at the heart of Iran’s regime” —Joe Klein, Time

Author : Mark Bowden
Publisher : Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Page : 532 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2007-12-01
Category : Sports & Recreation
ISBN : 9781555846053

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Bringing the Heat by Mark Bowden Pdf

“An ambitious, remarkably frank” chronicle of the Philadelphia Eagles’ bid for the NFL championship by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author (Kirkus Reviews). In 1992, the Philadelphia Eagles—a team assembled in the image of their iconoclastic, controversial former head coach, Buddy Ryan—were known for their ferocious defense led by Reggie White, Seth Joyner, and Andre Waters, and for the otherworldly talents of quarterback Randall Cunningham. Now was the time for the Eagles’ campaign for the championship. But as the season progressed, it disintegrated into an ugly flurry of greed, racism, violence, personal and professional feuds, one tragic death, and a very wild face-off in the stands between a player’s wife and mistress. By midseason, the sentiment of both fans and press was the same: “shut up and play.” Told through the personal stories of the teammates themselves, as well as the coaches, managers and owner, Bringing the Heat spares nothing—and no one—in “a phenomenal feat of reportage, perfect for football fans coast to coast” (H. G. Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights). “Overflows with stories of pro football dreams, of bravery in the face of injury. Yet it also unflinchingly tells of the darker side of life in the NFL: uncontrollable egos, ruined families, marital infidelity.” —The New York Times Book Review “There are now four mandatory books on football: Dan Jenkins’s Semi-Tough; George Plimpton’s Paper Lion; H. G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights, and the hilarious, incorrigible son of them all, Mark Bowden’s Bringing the Heat.” —Michael Bamberger, Sports Illustrated