In this book, the author brings a mythographer's perspective and novelist's virtuosity to bear on the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, one of the most infamous of the United States' client-dictators, who resolved to transform his country into 'a second America in a generation', only to be toppled virtually overnight.

In this book, the author brings a mythographer's perspective and novelist's virtuosity to bear on the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, one of the most infamous of the United States' client-dictators, who resolved to transform his country into 'a second America in a generation', only to be toppled virtually overnight.