James Buchan studied Persian and Arabic at Oxford University and spent twelve years as foreign correspondent of the Financial Times. His books, both fiction and non-fiction, have won a number of leading literary prizes and have been translated into fifteen or more languages.

'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'