Sleep in Peace: the Shah of Iran, Ghost Cyrus Great, and Party Before Revolution

In October 1971, the Shah of Iran staged one of the most extravagant celebrations in modern history - a 2,500th-anniversary tribute to the Persian Empire, held among the ruins of Persepolis, attended by kings, presidents, and the world's press. Eight years later, he was gone, and so was his throne.Sleep in Peace tells the story of how that happened - and argues that the popular version everyone already knows is too simple.This is not just the story of a party. It's the story of a monarchy that modernised a country faster than it modernised its own politics; of an oil boom that financed both extraordinary development and the strikes that ended it; of a secret police that could suppress a newspaper but not a mosque network; and of a king who mistook the image of an ancient inheritance for the substance of one.Drawing on contested historical records, disputed casualty figures, and the gap between what actually happened and what has been repeated for fifty years, Sleep in Peace traces the full arc of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's reign - from his father's coup in 1921 to his own death in exile in 1980 - and asks what his fall actually reveals about power, legitimacy, and the stories nations tell about themselves."A king may build palaces, but it is the people who decide how the story ends."