winterbadger | stepping back into the recent past

35/50 Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden. The book cover makes an attempt to connect, and the author tries briefly towards the end of the story to make a link, between the 1979-1981 US Embassy hostage crisis in Iran and the current 'war' between the US and 'militant Islam', whatever that broad category means. This isn't terribly convincing, but very little of the book deals with it, so no harm, no foul (likely the intent was to make the book seem more 'relevant' to the casual browser).

Instead, the book gives a fairly detailed and very engaging and personal account of the experiences of a number of the diplomats and military and intelligence personnel from the US Embassy in Tehran who were taken captive and held by Iran for over a year. Bowden also describes the attempt by the US military to stage a rescue of the hostages, which failed due to mechanical problems and bad weather. He concludes the volume with notes about his visits to the former embassy compound while researchign the book and on interview he conducted with several of the leading student activists who led the assault on the embassy.

I recall the period and many of the events; I was 15 when the hostages were taken; a lifelong admirer of President Jimmy Carter, I still recall the bitter anger that I felt toward Iran that they delayed releasing the hostages until after Reagan was sworn in, so as to deprive Carter of even the slightest sense of accomplishment. But the account provides a wealth detail that I never knew, and it draws some wonderful portraits of the prisoners (and some sketches of their captors), sharing with us their frustration and boredom, their occasional terror and frequent anger. It's a great read, and I would heartily recommend it.

In progress
1776 by David McCullough
Doom Castle by Neil Munro
Hostile Skies: A Combat History of the American Air Service in World War I by James J. Hudson
Drinking Arak Off an Ayatollah's Beard: A Journey Through the Inside-Out Worlds of Iran and Afghanistan by Nicholas Jubber
Understanding China by John Bryan Starr
The Williamite Wars in Ireland, 1688-1691 by John Childs
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 by Thomas Desjardins
Theoretical Criminology by George B. Vold et al.
Knights of the Cross; or, Krzyzacy by Henryk Sienkiewicz