This was a great read and a collection of thoughtful insights in revolutions in general. I want to write a proper review on it.

Honestly I didn't care much for the first half of the book that much, while the dreamy prose is lovely, in the end I'd prefer a traditional in-depth history.. which is a shame I guess. I lived through this time but I was very young, and didn't completely understand what was happening. I can't say I feel much new clarity after reading this.

What a brilliant book. Kapuściński describes the oppression and the suffering under the shah so vividly, you can almost feel the greyness and the paranoia of living under a regime like that. The sections on SAVAK really made me understand the dark and destructive effect an organisation like that can have on a society.

Structurally, it's a bit uneven: divided into thirds, the bulkier first two parts of which contextualize the Shah's regime and document the various acts of cruelty performed by the Savak (the Shah's secret police) as recounted by several survivors; then the final third which provides helter-skelter observations of the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath. Otherwise a solid translation, rich with an outsider's observations of one cruel system upended by another.

4.5/5.

Maybe we shouldnt have overthrown that democratically elected politician

i liked the way kapuscinski describes the general character, mentality and emotion of the animal that revolutions tend to turn into. i almost found the specific iranian context secondary in this book; always of interest to me, just, secondary here.

really fascinating that he traveled around so much decades ago as a reporter - i appreciated the journalistic lens he has written this through.

I learned nothing about Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. I learned nothing about Iran. This book was about a man (Kapuscinski) desperate to exhibit his talentless prose using a facade of historical non-fction.