44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World

Description

At a time when most Westerners fled the carnage in Iran, David Burnett was one of the few to stay and document the breathtakingly sudden fall of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in December 1978, and the chaotic political maneuvering that would culminate in the triumph of the Ayatollahs and the birth of the Islamic Republic. 44 Days re-creates a coup that led to our long hostage crisis, President Jimmy Carter's political demise, and an enmity still blazing after thirty years. Burnett's vivid images of the dizzying events and emotions of that turbulent time illustrate his narrative of the monarchy's destruction, the last-ditch efforts to salvage a secular government, and the establishment of a hard-line regime dominated by religious leaders and the rule of Islamic law. Accompanying Burnett's account is a penetrating foreword by commentator Christiane Amanpour, herself Iranian-born, as well as an essay by celebrated New York Times reporter John Kifner, who shares his own experience of revolution in Iran and reflects upon its decades-long aftermath. Filled with powerful insights into the revolution and its pertinence today, this book is for history and current affairs buffs, photography lovers, and everyone interested in the clash of Islamic fundamentalism and the West.

David Burnett was born in 1946 in Salt Lake City Utah, USA. Early in his career he became the last photojournalist to cover the American war in Vietnam for Life magazine. He has since worked in over 60 countries, documenting the coup in Chile (1973), revolution in Iran (1979), famine in Ethiopia (1984), the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), and the US military intervention in Haiti (1994). A co-founder of Contact Press Images in 1976 with Robert Pledge, he is the winner of the 1973 Robert Capa Gold Medal, the 1979 World Press Photo Premiere Award, the Overseas Press Club of America's "Best Reporting from Abroad in Magazines and Books" Award in 1984, and a first prize in the World Press Photo in 2005. A veteran journalist of the political scene in Washington, he has photographed every American president from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush (1963-2004), as well as recently elected Barack Obama on his campaign trail. He has also covered every summer Olympics Games from 1984 to 2004, and is the author of E-motion- The Spirit of Sport. In 2006 he produced a 26-page essay on the traces of Hurricane Katrina for the National Geographic magazine. Since his early work form Vietnam, he has been a regular contributor to Time magazine. He is based in Washington, DC, USA.