
The Fall of Heaven
The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $25.76
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Assaf Cohen
An immersive, gripping account of the rise and fall of Iran's glamorous Pahlavi dynasty, written with the cooperation of the late shah's widow, Empress Farah.
In this remarkably human portrait of one of the 20th century's most complicated personalities, author Andrew Scott Cooper traces Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He highlights the turbulence of the postwar era, during which the shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the world's top five powers. Listeners get the story of the shah's political career alongside the story of his courtship and marriage to Farah Diba, who became a power in her own right; the story of the beloved family they created; and an exclusive look at life inside the palace during the Iranian Revolution.
Cooper's investigative account ultimately delivers the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty through the eyes of those who were there: leading Iranian revolutionaries; President Jimmy Carter and White House officials; US Ambassador William Sullivan and his staff in the American embassy in Tehran; American families caught up in the drama; and even Empress Farah herself, along with the rest of the Iranian imperial family.
At once intimate and sweeping, The Fall of Heaven recreates in stunning detail the dramatic and final days of one of the world's most legendary ruling families, the unseating of which helped set the stage for the current state of the Middle East.
©2016 Andrew Scott Cooper (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















People who viewed this also viewed...


















Recommended for those interested in a nation/people we know so little about, yet for whom the West holds a strong, negative opinion. For those that want to understand how yesterday's decisions (or lack therein) shaped the world today.
Very interesting; recommended
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Informative & Important Perspectives
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The entire book can be summarized in one short dialogue that the author repeats at least 50 times with only minimal variation:
-Loyal General/Governor/Minister: Sire, the enemy is organizing. Thousands will die of you don’t order the army to put down the mob
-Shah: no don’t do that. Everything will be fine and I don’t want to see anyone hurt.
-Loyal General/Governor/Minister: But sire, many more will die if you don’t send in the army. The people WANT a firm ruler.
Shah: I don’t have it in me to give the order. Give them more freedom instead
-Loyal General/Governor/Minister: But sire, we will surely die if you don’t take firm measures and the Iranian people will be so much worse off if you don’t
-Shah/ I cannot. My souls is gentle come what may. I’m just a shy guy who only looks stern on TV.
*wash, rinse, repeat* (with a few diversions relating to the Shah’s marriages and carousing)
If you found the foregoing dialogue compelling then you are in for a treat with this book. If you think that dialogue would get tiresome after a dozen telling, this may not be the book for you. But if you skip it, you will miss out on the author wistfully reciting Saddam Hussein’s “prescient advice” that “better a few thousand die now then tens of thousands later” (exhorting the Shah to, you guessed it, send in the army).
Author Bias Dilutes Argument
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
My only issue was the narration. The accents were poorly done including a male voice speaking for a female in what is assumed to be a Farsi accent. It was actually annoying. I would have avoided the constant switching back and forth.
Informative
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Get someone who speaks Farsi please...
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Safest story of down fall of a country
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Long on quotes, short on narrative
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very interesting though probably quite biased.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Must read for Iranians
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.