Andrew Scott Cooper

The Fall of Heaven Andrew Scott Cooper

An immersive, gripping account of the rise and fall of Irans glamorous Pahlavi dynasty, written with the cooperation of the late shahs widow, Empress FarahIn this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth centurys most complicated personalities, author Andrew Scott Cooper traces Mohammad Reza Pahlavis life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He highlights the turbulence of the postwar era, during which the shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the worlds top five powers. Listeners get the story of the shahs political career alongside the story of his courtship and marriage to Farah Diba, who became a power in her own right; the beloved family they created; and an exclusive look at life inside the palace during the Iranian Revolution. Coopers investigative account ultimately delivers the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty through the eyes of those who were there: leading Iranian revolutionaries, President Jimmy Carter and White House officials, US Ambassador William Sullivan and his staff in the American embassy in Tehran, American families caught up in the drama, and even Empress Farah herself, along with the rest of the Iranian Imperial family. At once intimate and sweeping, The Fall of Heaven recreates in stunning detail the dramatic and final days of one of the worlds most legendary ruling families, the unseating of which helped set the stage for the current state of the Middle East.