A curious amalgam of dry economics and passionate politics, making a most interesting history of Iran in the Pahlavi era. The author, who dedicates his book to the memory of Mohammed Mossadeq, pulls no punches in his descriptions of the "pseudomodernist despotism" of Reza Shah and the "petrolic despotism" of his son; nor does he spare, in a brief epilogue, the follies of the pan-Islamic zealots who have taken power since 1979.