Part 1 Palace: from dreams to awakening; from Persepolis to Jean-Paul Sartre; between wife and sister; flowers on the carpet; don't fire on the crowd!; even judges; the impossible renunciation; what is happening in Guadeloupe?; visa for Egypt. Part 2 Prison: youngsters as at Vincennes; surprises in a prison hospital; the corridor of fear.
Ehsan Naraghi founded Tehran University's respected Institute of Social Studies and Research in the late 1950s. He is now an adviser to UNESCO in Paris.
On September 28, 1978, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, summoned the author, a prominent Iranian sociologist, to the palace in Teheran to ask for his analysis of the current political situation. ``Where does this rebellion and spreading agitation originate? Who instigated it? Who is sustaining this process? Who triggered this religious movement?'' Naraghi's daring answer, ``You yourself, Majesty,'' led to a series of conversations in which the author was given the opportunity to explain to the shah why he was considered an enemy of the people and what, if anything, could be done about it. In Naraghi's reconstruction, the eight meetings held during the final year of the shah's reign constitute a portrait of a national leader who was deaf to criticism and blind to reality. After the shah's flight into exile in February 1979, Naraghi was arrested and held for nearly three years in the notorious Evin Prison by followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini. His account of this experience makes up the second half of this compelling memoir. (Jan.)
This highly readable book is written from the perspective of an Iranian intellectual who observed the Shah's behavior firsthand during the last months of the Pahlavi monarchy. The first part of the book is devoted to a detailed description of Naraghi's conversations with the Shah, which took place in the midst of the revolutionary upheaval in mid- to late 1978. These conversations reveal vividly the Shah's mindset during this turbulent period. The second half of the book deals with the author's imprisonment following the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79. In this part, Naraghi seeks to explain not only his own personal plight but also the complex and competing views of various administrative and judicial authorities of the new Iranian regime. Recommended for students of modern Middle East politics and informed general readers.-- Nader Entessar, Spring Hill Coll., Mobile, Ala.
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