Reviews

Bill, director of the Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary, has written the most comprehensive, clarifying and revealing study to date of a foreign-policy failure he calls a ``catastrophe of tremendous proportion.'' Analyzing the gradual turnabout in a relationship once very close but now bitterly estranged, he identifies the U.S.-engineered downfall of Muhammad Musaddiq in 1953 as the point when many Iranians began to perceive America no longer as a friend and protector but as ``an imperialistic, oppressive external force.'' Much of the text concerns American ignorance in action. Readers will also find an in-depth analysis of methods by which private citizensled by the Rockefeller familypromoted their own interests in Iran. Bill draws 12 major foreign-policy lessons at the end, including this one: ``Any unquestioned, dominant policy premise in Washington should be treated with skepticism and subjected to careful and continual questioning.'' Illustrations. History Book Club alternate. (May)

Bill (College of William and Mary) has produced a comprehensive and eminently readable analysis of the American-Iran connection from its beginning in 1835. It is painfully clear that the factors leading to the hostage crises (in Iran and Lebanon), the Iran-contra affair, and our current state of confused nonrelationship to Iran are labyrinthian. Not since Ervand Abrahamian's Iran Between Two Revolutions ( LJ 7/82) has such a thorough examination been made. Of great value is Bill's list of recommendations for U.S. foreign policy practitioners. This is the book to buy for a definitive analysis of our Iranian adventure and how to avoid its repetition. Strongly recommended for libraries with any collection in this area. David P. Snider, Casa Grande Public Library, Arizona