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Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam | 
 enlarge | Author: Mark Bowden
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  81 reviews
Sales Rank: 130680
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 704
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.5 x 1.8
ISBN: 0871139251
Dewey Decimal Number: 955.0542
UPC: 761553026007
EAN: 9780871139252
ASIN: 0871139251
Publication Date: April 25, 2006
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Product Description
From the best-selling author of Black Hawk Down comes a riveting, definitive chronicle of the Iran hostage crisis, America's first battle with militant Islam. On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans hostage, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days.
In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naive captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages' cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides.
Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly re-created, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 76 more reviews...
 Masterpiece June 29, 2008
Reads like a thriller novel, but is 100% true. If you are completely unfamiliar with the history of Iran from about 1945-1979 you should probably spend at least a few minutes learning about that before reading this book. The book jumps right into the drama of the hostage crisis without providing much background.
I listened to the audiobook. The pros of the audiobook version are that it is skillfully read by the author of the book. The con is that the audiobook is abridged.
Bowden at his best May 27, 2008
Mark Bowden is a genius at bringing intensive historical events to life and Guests of the Ayatollah doesn't disappoint. While easy enough to step back and look at the boiling pot of the clash of cultures and paranoia that led to the takeover. However, his ability to bring to light the individual stories, including tracking down the hostage takers gave an incredible insight into the mindset of the key players. I was particularly fascinated by his ability to not just focus on the takeover and Desert One pieces, but also highlight the more interesting vignettes from the 444 days.
Bowden is a great reader for his own material, which only makes the audio book more interesting. If you're a fan of Bowden or want to understand more about militant Isalam, this is a can't-miss.
***You will Think you Were There While it Happened!**** April 15, 2008
When the American Embassy in Iran was overrun by radical students, I like most Americans followed the story very closely. This book was an eye opening experience as to what happened on the inside. How the hostages were mistreated, starved, and beaten by radicals. But, they were also treated with kindness by some of the radicals, which I had never heard before. The only fault that I have with the book is that it seemed to finish up much more quickly than it started and you feel a little cheated. Overall a good book. I admire how the hostages handled themselves and how they were able to continue on with their lives when they got released.
Bowden Delivers a Masterpiece March 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Guests of the Ayatollah presents the extensively researched, impelling non-fiction style for which Bowden has become widely acclaimed through his other best sellers. As someone who has read other Bowden books, I felt Guests of the Ayatollah is his best book to date.
In this book, Bowden provides the intense, all-inclusive details from start to finish of the 444 day Iranian Hostage Crisis. The reader is taken inside the holding cell of each hostage and witnesses in vivid detail the daily routines, abuse, and emotions each hostage endured during their stay. I quickly became a fan of certain hostages such as diplomat Michael Metrinko, who so adamantly despised his captivity and insulted his captors for which he suffered solitary confinement and severe beatings up to the 444th day. While Bowden shares the heroic stories of the hostages, he doesn't disregard certain hostages who fellow captives felt were cowards and swine.
Bowden has become widely acclaimed for his ability to investigate the subject of each book and then transpose his research into dramatic details for readers, and Guests of the Ayatollah is no exception to his method. Where Guests of the Ayatollah differs from other Bowden books is in its significant focus on the Iranian and American political environments during the hostage crisis. Bowden provides an in depth summary of the Carter administrations options and its secretive negotiations with what still existed of the volatile Iranian government. Rather than provide his opinion on the performance of the Carter administration, Bowden does a fine job of avoiding personal bias, and allows the reader to reach an informed conclusion in regard to the politics surrounding the Hostage Crisis.
Some reviewers seem to feel that Bowden provides justification for the actions of the hostage takers. I don't believe this is accurate given that Bowden spends very little time examining the Shah's government other then to acknowledge America's continued support for the Pahlavi government up to the revolution. I found that on the controversial issues Bowden provides the facts and allows the reader draw his/her own conclusions. However, Bowden offers one prevailing conclusion that the Iranian Hostage Crisis established the power of the mullahocrasy in Iran, which runs the government to this day. The epilogue goes on to examine whether or not the hostage crisis benefited Iran, and concludes the establishment of the mullahocracy has done more harm to the country.
If you enjoyed Killing Pablo, you will definitely enjoy Guests of the Ayatollah. If you liked Black Hawk Down you will also enjoy this book, though it doesn't assert the amount of focus to military operations given in Black Hawk Down. If you have not read anything by Bowden, you should, and Guests of the Ayatollah is a wonderful starting point.
As engaging as fiction January 23, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bowden does a superb job of putting together a story as exciting as any spy novel I've ever read. He intertwines the experiences of the various characters involved so smoothly that you think he must have created the entire plot himself. And the fact that it's nonfiction makes the book that much more gripping. I found myself learning a great deal about the politics of the Middle East without having to wade through another standard, heavy historical text. Great book!
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