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Shop nowThe Fall of Heaven
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Learn moreAn immersive, gripping account of the rise and fall of Iran’s glamorous Pahlavi dynasty, written with the cooperation of the late shah’s widow, Empress Farah
In this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most complicated personalities, author Andrew Scott Cooper traces Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s 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 world’s top five powers. Listeners get the story of the shah’s 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.
Cooper’s 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 world’s most legendary ruling families, the unseating of which helped set the stage for the current state of the Middle East.
Andrew Scott Cooper is the author of The Oil Kings: How the US, Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East, which Simon and Schuster published in 2011. His writing on contemporary Iran appears regularly in the Guardian. He lives in Brooklyn.
Assaf Cohen is an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. He has appeared in various plays, short films, and television shows. He grew up in Palo Alto and attended UC Berkeley where he earned a bachelor’s degree in integrative biology. He continued his classical training by earning a master of fine arts in acting from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University under the instruction of legendary acting instructor William Esper.
Reviews
“A sympathetic account of the imperial couple of the Peacock Throne portrayed as so blindly benevolent that they did not see the Iranian Revolution coming…Cooper addresses many of what he believes are misconceptions of the regime, such as the grossly inflated numbers of those imprisoned and executed by the shah’s notorious secret police as well as the shah’s consent to the use of force on demonstrators. A thorough new appraisal of an enigmatic ruler who died believing his people still loved him.”
“Cooper, a scholar of oil markets and US-Iran relations, recounts the rise and fall of Iran’s glamorous Pahlavi dynasty, challenging common characterizations of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi as a brutal dictator…This thorough work is immensely detailed yet readable and continuously engaging…A fascinating, distinctive, and personal account of the Shah and his rule.”
“The Shah is revealed to be a sympathetic, flawed ruler who believed he had the mandate of heaven as the source of his power, only to see his drive to modernity set back by extremists…Extensive insights from Mohammed’s wife, Farah Pahlavi, add dimension to this portrait of Iran under the Shah’s rule. A well-researched and fascinating book.”
“Cooper provides an expert and more nuanced view of the Shah, his regime, and its collapse…His fall was the result of a confluence of external and internal factors, including, of course, the effectiveness and fanatic determination of Islamic extremists as well as the ambivalence of the US government. This is a fine revisionist study of major world events that continue to influence the fate of the Middle East.”
“Here is all the power and glamour—but also the dark side and ultimately the tragedy—of the last Shah of Iran. A moving and thoroughly researched account.”
“The Fall of Heaven is a vivid and penetrating portrait of the last chapters of imperial Iran and the ruler whose attempt to thrust his country into modernity ended with upheaval and exile. This book provides valuable insight into the background of a revolution that is still shaking international politics today.”
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