Days of God

'James Buchan trains a more scientific eye on how Iran's wealth-creator king was replaced with a Shia divine uninterested in modern government. He mines the literature in Persian and English to better effect than any historian so far . . . Why did the shah's subjects not accept his notion of history racing to a conclusion in prosperity's glow? In this fine, elegantly written book, Mr Buchan lays out the answer in detail'

'Marvellous book. It is hard to imagine anyone else possessing the combination of qualities Buchan brings. He has the journalist's analytical eye and the novelist's imagination . . . He can segue between the theology of Qom and the gossip of the Shah's improvised, petrodollar-funded Versailles, swooping all the while onto details either grim or hilarious or both at once that leave the reader scratching his head and wondering how the author can know so much . . . It is written with the ancient historian's ambition - the ambition that Gibbon, Macaulay and Marx would recognise - that the record of humanity's blunders and bloodbaths and half-understandings should itself be an object of elegance and ironic beauty'

'Buchan's prose is excellent, with the vocabulary, range and atmosphere of a literary master, the clout of the sharp historian, and the ability to leaven history with fascinating snippets of intimate information, delightful, droll or horrifying. His research is thorough . . . This is a compelling, beautifully written history of a country which has produced great literature, art and a warm people whose lives have been manipulated by other countries with ulterior motives and by their own autocratic and theocratic dictators'

'This book comes alive with a wonderfully detailed and authoritative account of the Shah's final days and the murder and mayhem that followed'

'Sharply written and persuasive . . . Days of God offers a number of valuable, if frightening insights'

'Buchan enlists all his narrative skill, learning and panache in this story of modern Iran'

Praise for James Buchan: 'James Buchan writes like a dream'

'A succinct elegant book, written in an easy, conversational tone which never makes its big ideas or profound implications seem intimidating'

'James Buchan's elegant prose sparkles on the page'

'Combines deft broad strokes with intricate details, shading in apparent dry subjects with innumerable and delightful anecdotes'

'A soundly argued account of the causes, course and consequences of the revolution . . . Buchan, a Persian scholar and former Financial Times foreign correspondent, puts his first-hand experience of Iran to perceptive use'

'A superb and original history of the Iranian Revolution. It's essential reading'

'Buchan is capable of delivering assessment of stark precision'

'An elegant and textured analysis'

'Buchan has a sure touch with narrative. Days of God is skilfully constructed, deftly weaving a path through the thickets of complex events while displaying the wider historical background against which this political earthquake was staged'

Rejecting theory, Buchan relies on old-fashioned virtues: a careful reading of the Persian and foreign sources, his immersion in the country's culture (he was a star Persionist at Oxford) and an instinct for the events and personalities that turned Iran from Middle East poster boy to society in upheaval. Buchan brings a keen, satirical eye to the story of a corrupt, intrigue-ridden court and a modernising Shah who cut through traditional Iran as if "the conflicts of centuries were being squeezed into half a dozen years"

Elegant and pugnacious

His story of the revolution is the best book on Iran I have ever read. He has the pen of the travel writer Robert Byron, and a trove of Persian poetry and lore shines from every page. Shafts of insight alternate with piercing wit, and his ironic dissection of both the shah and the ayatollah would do credit to Gibbon

An outstanding analysis of the legacy of Iran's revolution

Buchan's story of the Iranian revolution is the best book on Iran I have ever read