In her privileged circles the thunder of approaching revolution was easy to ignore. Then the Shah fell and in the terrifying new fundamentalist regime of Ayatollah Khomeini Sousan and her friends were branded taghouti, devil's followers. They were hunted, their children brainwashed, their property confiscated. Alone with her son after the death of her husband, Sousan became an easy target. She was flung into jail, where she witnessed terrible suffering inflicted in the name of 'immodest behaviour' and 'indecency.' Only when she caught the eye of a Mullah, who clearly expected sexual favours in return, did she escape. But real freedom still lay beyond the snow-capped Zagros mountains, in Turkey- a hazardous route for a woman and child to take. OUT OF IRAN grips and involves the reader as it recounts one woman's courageous struggle for survival in fanatical war-torn Iran.

    In this detailed, balanced study, Taheri, former editor of the Iranian daily Kayhan and now resident in Europe, traces the rise of this "quintessential" mullah, who began life in an oasis-village religious family, pursued an eccentric, lone-wolf career, and emerged in the 1960s as a strong critic of the Shah and others.

    

    Foreign Service, the philosophies that frame our foreign policies, and the forces that animate our career diplomats. Kennedy contends that U.S. society and government's inability to understand the difference between "modernization" (doing things with technology) and "Westernization" (doing things the Western way) is the basis for many woes in South America and the Middle East. Furthermore, he asserts, the targeting of the United States as the prime subject for terrorism is a result of our refusal or inability to take the concerns and existence of the Middle East seriously. Insightful, thought-provoking, and an absolute requirement for any serious study of modern foreign policy and international relations.