Mark Bowden - Guests of the Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis: The First Battle in Americas War with Militant Islam

Praise for Guests of the Ayatollah:

Suspenseful [and] inspiring.

More than twenty-six years later, the siege of the embassy might seem like irrelevant history to those who know little or nothing about it. As talented journalist Mark Bowden shows, the standoff involving fifty-two American hostages is anything but irrelevant.

Bleakly compelling[Bowden] writes about events in a way that gives a clear picture of both high-level decision making and the price paid by people on the ground. the passions of the moment still reverberate. In Bowdens book, you can feel them on every page.

Mark Bowden is a master storyteller, exceptionally skilled at placing military and political events in a meaningful context. Thus, Guests of the Ayatollah may be his most timely and valuable work to date. A must read.

[A] rivetingmasterfully told taleBowden skillfully gets inside the minds of the hostages, vividly describing their churning emotions and harrowing experiences. Fans of the author of Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo will see plenty of classic Bowden here: meticulous reporting backed by a compelling narrative.

Guests of the Ayatollah may be the most revealing book ever written about desperate hostages on the brink.

An impressive piece of narrative journalism.

A refreshingly lively accountBowdens skill turns bad news into good reading.

Bowdens mammoth feat of reportage is essential reading. Bowden shows unparalleled skill in constructing an omniscient and engrossing narrative based on an almost daily account of the plight of the hostages, behind-the-scenes political machinations, and the planning of a rescue mission. A.

Bowden is a courageous and methodical journalist and gifted storyteller. He weaves a maddeningly complicated heap of recollections, emotions, and facts into a coherent, credible, and engaging account.

Mark Bowden is a master of calamity, and he will have readers chewing their nails like teenagers as they read Guests of the Ayatollah . Yet Bowden does more than spin a good yarn. He nails the moment at which radical Islamists first learned they could use terror and anti-Americanism to immobilize the West and claim victory over domestic rivals.

A prodigious achievement in reportingCompelling.

A very good bookA complex story full of cruelty, heroism, foolishness, and tragic misunderstandings.

Readers may wonder why they should read a blow-by-blow account of an event so widely reported so long ago. But as the story unfolds, illuminated by journalist Mark Bowdens meticulous reporting and measured prose, what seems familiar is suddenly fresh. The significance crystallizes. Uncannily, the events prefigure those of the post-Sept. 11 era: the initial why do they hate us? shock; the impotent outrage; the sense that we suddenly faced a baffling and unexpected threat, and that harsheven recklessmeasures were needed to confront it. It was, in retrospect, a defining moment for the United States.

Americans are told over and over that 9/11 changed everything and, in important ways, it did. But as Mark Bowden points out in this monumental piece of research, writing, and reasoning, they might give 11/4 some consideration, too. On that date, Nov. 4, 1979, a ragtag band of Iranian militants, most of them students, invaded the sprawling U.S. embassy in downtown Tehran and seized everyone inside as hostages. Bowden does a prodigious job, telling an important storyand barring the unlikely, nobody will ever tell it better.

Daring and masterfulBowden has accomplished a monumental task. [A] masterpiece.

Bowdens account excels at describing the unfolding drama of the individual hostages. This is a powerful and probably definitive history that deserves a large audience.

Riveting drama and telling detail[ Guests of the Ayatollah ] is a masterful account that includes its share of revelations, but never veers far from the intensely personal stories that took place behind the scenes. Seems destined for lofty residence on the summers best-seller lists, further cementing Bowdens reputation as one of Americas finest print journalists.

This is history as tragedy, written as a thriller by a master storyteller.

A riveting accountBowdens latest will tempt readers to keep turning the pages.

Written like a novel and shot through with page-turning suspenseThe amount of research and reporting that must have gone into it are awe-inspiring.

A good and important book.

Bowden mixed his newspapermans skillswith his gift for novel-like narrative. The resulting story is not only suspenseful but revelatory as well.

Investigative journalist and author Mark Bowden knows how to write books that strike a chord with modern readers. His latest may be his finest work yet.

Bowden, a skilled journalist and narrator, provides a perfectly timed examination of what happened twenty-seven years ago during the Iranian hostage crisis. Bowden shines in describing the gallant madness of the failed rescue effort.

Bowden tells this compelling and fateful tale from all angles. This is likely the closest well get to a comprehensive and definitive account for some time. Bowden is especially good in recounting the paradoxical experience of the hostages. Detailed, instructive, and heartbreaking.

GUESTS OF THE AYATOLLAH

Also by Mark Bowden:

Doctor Dealer

Bringing the Heat

Black Hawk Down

Killing Pablo

Road Work

Finders Keepers

GUESTS OF THE AYATOLLAH

THE FIRST BATTLE IN AMERICAS WAR WITH MILITANT ISLAM

Mark Bowden

Grove Press

New York

To Aaron, Beth, Anya, BJ, Dan, and Ben

Copyright 2006 by Mark Bowden

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, or the facilitation thereof, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

first paperback edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bowden, Mark, 1951
Guests of the Ayatollah: the first battle in Americas war with militant Islam / by Mark Bowden
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-10: 0-8021-4303-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-4303-7
1. United StatesForeign relationsIran. 2. IranForeign relationsUnited
States. 3. Iran Hostage Crisis, 19791981Chronology. 4. United States
Armed ForcesSearch and rescue operations. 5. Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979
1981Personal narratives. 6. HostagesIran. I. Title

E183.8.I55B68 2006955.05'42dc22 2005058862