List $39.99

Written by Stephen Kinzer - Audio book narrated by Michael Prichard - Unabridged Nonfiction - 9 COMPACT DISCS - 10 hours, 34 minutes

Publisher, Tantor Media (December 2003)

"Kinzer's brilliant reconstruction of the Iranian coup is made even more fascinating by the fact that it is true. It is as gripping as a thriller, and also tells much about why the United States is involved today in places like Afgahanistan and Iraq." --Gore Vidal

"It is not far-fetched," Kinzer asserts, "to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah's repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York."

"... breezy storytelling and diligent research...This stands as a textbook lesson in how not to conduct foreign policy." --Publisher's Weekly

"... He does so with a keen journalistic eye, and with a novelist's pen...in what is a very gripping read." --The New York Times

Half a century ago, the United States overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, whose "crime" was nationalizing the country's oil industry.

In a cloak-and-dagger story of spies, saboteurs, and secret agents, Kinzer reveals the involvement of Eisenhower, Churchill, Kermit Roosevelt, and the CIA in Operation Ajax, which restored Mohammad Reza Shah to power. Reza imposed a tyranny that ultimately sparked the Islamic Revolution of 1979 which, in turn, inspired fundamentalists throughout the Muslim world, including the Taliban and terrorists who thrived under its protection.

About the Author: Stephen Kinzer is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more than fifty countries on four continents. During the 1980s he covered revolution and social upheaval in Central America. In 1990 he was named chief of the Times bureau in Berlin, and spent the next six years covering the emergence of post-Communist Europe. Later Kinzer became the first Times bureau chief in Istanbul. He is coauthor of Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala and author of Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua and Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds. Kinzer is currently a New York Times correspondent based in Chicago.

About the Narrator: Winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards, Alan Sklar has narrated over 60 audiobooks, including Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden, The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings by Thomas Maier, and Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. The Dartmouth graduate's theatre credits include Hamlet, Taming of The Shrew, The Seagull, and many modern roles. Alan has also narrated thousands of corporate videos for clients such as NASA, Sikorsky Aircraft, IBM, Dannon, Pfizer, AT&T, and SONY.