When reading the following, please keep in mind that the book was published in 1980 and therefore, some key events that occured later are not reflected in the book.
FALL OF THE PEACOCK THRONE
The Story Of Iran
William Forbis
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his destined Hour, and went his Way.
-The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Gone his way is Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 446th and last of the Iranian shahs. Gone with him is the Pahlavi dynasty, founded fifty years ago (about 1930), by his father, the last of an uncountable number of dynasties. Gone with the dynasty is the world's oldest monarchy, stretching back for twenty-five centuries. With this momentous event, Iran is cast into chaos -chaos that potentially contains the seeds of economic depression in the West from loss of Middle Eastern oil, and even the seeds of war, should the Soviet Union make a grab for Iran's oil and its warm-water ports, or should Iran ally itself with some of the Arab countries in a holy war on Israel.
![[Map of Iran]](/web/20091022092204im_/http://geocities.com/Athens/5646/map.jpg)
For fifteen years, Iran has throbbed and churned with transformation, with changes coming so fast that, as one observer in Teheran remarked to me, "only an impressionist can get them down." Decreed by a strong-willed Shah and fuelled by billions of oil dollars, the changes wrenched society back and forth between the seductive goal of wealthy, materialistic modernization and the equally powerful impulse to preserve the sweet Persian traditions of mysticism, poetry, and devotion to a pure and moralistic Islam. Potent forces lashed the Iranians. Universities sprang up in large numbers, and the students -half of them children of illiterate farmers and city workers- learned to demand more changes even as they suffered alienation from their families and the past. Industrialization worked its wry wonders, providing such combination boons and afflictions as mass car ownership, petrochemicals, and universal television. Villagers crowded into the cities, and mechanized agribusiness greened former deserts. The ancient and classical city of Isfahan became a center for the Iranian military-industrial complex, reflecting the fastest arms buildup in the world.
All these developments, capped by a revolution as authentic as the American, French or (to cite a recent example) Cuban revolutions, were stunning and important events on the world stage. Iran has become a country crucial to everyone.
Other parts in these series of excerpts:
Title: Fall of the Peacock Throne
Author: William H. Forbis
Imprint: New York, Harper & Row, 1980
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![[Map of Iran]](map.jpg)
For fifteen years, Iran has throbbed and churned with transformation, with changes coming so fast that, as one observer in Teheran remarked to me, "only an impressionist can get them down." Decreed by a strong-willed Shah and fuelled by billions of oil dollars, the changes wrenched society back and forth between the seductive goal of wealthy, materialistic modernization and the equally powerful impulse to preserve the sweet Persian traditions of mysticism, poetry, and devotion to a pure and moralistic Islam. Potent forces lashed the Iranians. Universities sprang up in large numbers, and the students -half of them children of illiterate farmers and city workers- learned to demand more changes even as they suffered alienation from their families and the past. Industrialization worked its wry wonders, providing such combination boons and afflictions as mass car ownership, petrochemicals, and universal television. Villagers crowded into the cities, and mechanized agribusiness greened former deserts. The ancient and classical city of Isfahan became a center for the Iranian military-industrial complex, reflecting the fastest arms buildup in the world.