The Fall Of Heave

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, Iranian revolutionaries and US officials from the Carter administration In this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth century's most complicated personalities, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Andrew Scott Cooper traces the Shah's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He draws the turbulence of the post-war 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. Readers 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 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; even Empress Farah herself, and the rest of the Iranian Imperial family. Intimate and sweeping at once, 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.

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, Iranian revolutionaries and US officials from the Carter administration. In this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth century's most complicated personalities, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Andrew Scott Cooper traces the Shah's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He draws the turbulence of the post-war 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. Readers 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 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; even Empress Farah herself, and the rest of the Iranian Imperial family. Intimate and sweeping at once, 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.

About the rise and fall of Iran's glamorous Pahlavi dynasty. Traces the Shah's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. Readers get the story of the Shah's political career alongside the story of his courtship and marriage to Farah Diba, and an exclusive look at life inside the palace during the Iranian Revolution

"The search for the Promised Land took socialists in diverse directions: revolution, communes and kibbutzim, social democracy, communism, fascism, Third Worldism. But none of these paths led to the prophesied utopia. Nowhere did socialists succeed in creating societies of easy abundance or in midwifing the birth of a "New Man," as their theory promised. Some socialist governments abandoned their grandiose goals and satisfied themselves with making slight modifications to capitalism, while others plowed ahead doggedly, often inducing staggering human catastrophes. Then, after two hundred years of wishful thinking and fitful governance, socialism suddenly imploded in the 1990s in a fin du siecle drama of falling walls, collapsing regimes and frantic revisions of doctrine."--BOOK JACKET.

Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"

Reveals the covert agreements that prompted America's decision to switch allegiance from Iran to Saudi Arabia as a dominant Middle-East oil supplier, citing the contributions of key players from Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to the Shah and Gerald Ford while explaining how choices in the 1970s set the stage for Iran's Islamic revolution.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, this extraordinary work of investigative journalism takes readers inside America’s isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities. • Now an acclaimed FX limited series streaming on HULU. “Fantastic.... Right up there with In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song.” —San Francisco Chronicle Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

A classic event in mountaineering history, dramatically retold by a classic mountaineer • Ascending the Matterhorn was the 19th century equivalent of standing on Mars • A great historical story of tension and drama • Author is uniquely qualified to delve into Whymper’s complicated personality As Fall of Heaven begins, we join professional mountain guide Jean-Antoine Carrel as he tries and fails, again and again, to summit the Matterhorn—one of the most famous and iconic peaks in the Alps. Is it the “Devil’s mountain,” as the locals call it? Should he heed the village priest who warned that its summit was not meant to be climbed? Carrel is undeterred, he just needs capable climbers to join him. Enter Edward Whymper, who in 1861 at the age of 21 decided—unbeknownst to Carrel—that he would be the first to climb the Matterhorn. So the storyline is set, except that where Carrel is captivating, Whymper is utterly unsympathetic as an adventurer. He is mean and disdainful of guides, describing them as little more than porters who eat and drink too much. Despite this attitude, Whymper’s quest leads him inexorably into partnership with Carrel. The story follows their many attempts to find a route to the top of the Matterhorn, but then fate pulls them apart just as Whymper finds the line. His successful summit on July 14, 1865, in which Carrel did not take part, shocked the Victorian world with both awe and revulsion as four members of Whymper’s party died in frightening falls. Famed climber and author Reinhold Messner acknowledges that Whymper was the first man to summit the Matterhorn, the last of the great Alpine peaks to be climbed and representing the beginning of an age of alpinism based on difficulty rather than conquest. But rather than leaving a hero’s legacy, Whymper is revealed as the Captain Ahab of alpinism, a team leader who accepted no responsibility for the deaths of his teammates. Fall of Heaven is an exciting tale and an examination of the different types of men who were caught up in the adventuring spirit of the Victorian age, and the ironic fates that can follow success or failure.