The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution

Rating:
Summary: Romantacizing Hoveida
Review: The author mentions that Hoveida met the notorious SAVAK chief Parviz Sabeti every wednesday and yet the author believes that Hoveida was a "liberal at heart". This is the fundamental flaw with this book. SAVAK would, say, take a female protestor arrested in a political demonstration and rape her and mutilate her genitals. This was routine work for SAVAK. You can not be a "liberal at heart" and yet dine with someone like Sabeti. Twenty years after the revolution, with memories of Pahlavi era dim in Iranian minds, there is a failure of remembarance leading to somehow try to find "heros" in persons like Hoveida. In my opionion, this is a insult to all the victims of Shah and his oppression machine.

Rating:
Summary: Unbalanced, Incompetent. So much for the editorial reviewer
Review: Well written it certainly is. I quite liked how it evoked emotion and revulsion at the murder of such friendly personality as Mr. Hoveyda. Factual the book most certainly is not. Yes it does make a good read. It sounds logical and well grounded in facts and also evokes many memories. Never the less, as much as I wanted to skip the petty points, which I had already heard ad nauseam, and read about Mr. Hoveyda it became clear that the key conclusions derived in this book are based on village gossip and the book has an agenda which is a bit difficult to decipher at first. It would seem to the casual reader the book is out to tarnish the reputation of who the Iranians now call Khoda biamorz [God bless him], using Hoveyda's life as an excuse. In fact, as I shall show, it falsely presents the very structure of the modern Iran created by Reza Pahlavi from the biased political view of someone who in his youth, as a follower of imaginary, idealistic and untested philosophy of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism combined, was preaching the massacre of the wealthy and respectable people. My detailed review can be found at amiran dot com followed by a forward slash (below the ? on your keyboard) and then typing Other. In this book I found a gold mine. It articulates the political motives behind the people delighted by the book and an eloquent display of their character at the same time. I believe it is necessary to bring to light the weakness of such gossip, and show how spreading gossip and this casual lying that is a staple of middle eastern politics, ultimately hurts us all.