‘The Shah’s Party and the Iranian Revolution That Followed’ review

When in April 2026 Donald Trump threatened the destruction of ‘a whole civilisation’ in Iran, it betrayed a desperation to bring an end to a conflict that will likely go down as one of the biggest follies in recent military history. But Trump’s words also alluded to something deeper. The genocidal threat to eradicate a civilisation unwittingly hit upon one reason why his war with Iran was never likely to be straightforward. Whatever ordinary Iranians think of the current regime, Iranian nationalism – and pride in Persian civilisation which, 25 centuries ago, comprised an empire that covered a quarter of the world’s population – runs deep. The threat of mass destruction from the president of a country with a long, undignified history of interference in Iranian affairs probably helped shore up an autocratic regime that had looked as if it might be on the brink.

Nationalism has been a significant feature of Iranian politics for decades, and a force that successive regimes have sought to harness for their own ends. Following Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution, this primarily manifested itself with warnings about the threat posed to Iran – real and imagined – from Israel and the US. But there was also a belated recognition that, even with the ‘Islamification’ of Iranian society, it might be politically expedient to utilise – or at least tolerate – the pride Iranians felt for ancient Iran and the Achaemenid Empire, established by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. In 1979 one of Khomeini’s most trusted lieutenants, Sadeq Khalkhali, travelled to Persepolis, the ceremonial Achaemenid capital, to announce plans to destroy ancient remains, including the tomb of Cyrus the Great, whom Khalkhali denounced as a homosexual, a criminal, and, therefore, anti-Islamic. Local residents threw stones at Khalkhali and formed human shields around the tomb. Khalkhali – one of the most feared figures in the revolutionary government – was forced to retreat.

It is the attempts made by the regime that Khomeini brought down, the Pahlavi dynasty, that form the subject of Robert Templer’s engaging but uneven book. Having become shah in 1941 at the age of 22, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a complex figure. He was a vain, insecure autocrat who effectively eradicated any pretence of Iranian democracy in 1975 by abolishing the existing political parties, which themselves offered little more than shades of sycophancy towards the Pahlavi regime. But he was also a moderniser who, flush with the revenue from oil exports, invested heavily in infrastructure and education. The ‘party’ referred to in Templer’s title was the shah’s woefully misguided attempt to sell these activities at home and abroad with a ceremony that positioned himself as the latest incarnation of 2,500 years of dynastic Persian rule.

The party took place in October 1971, the 2,500th anniversary of the establishment of the Iranian monarchy, amid the ruins of Persepolis. The symbolism, the shah hoped, would be obvious. The event was to be a riposte to critics of his regime, who were becoming increasingly loud both on the left and among the Islamic clerics. No expense was spared. Because there was little infrastructure in place at Persepolis and the nearest city, Shiraz, was more than 40 miles away, the shah spent $6.3 million building a city of luxurious air-conditioned tents which would allow partygoers to enjoy the festivities in extravagant comfort without ever being allowed to forget why they were there. Chefs were flown in from Paris; unused to the 40 degree heat they resorted to cooking in their underwear. Luminaries including Haile Selassie, Marshal Tito, and the fourth in line to the British throne, Princess Anne, sat on imported Parisian furniture while enjoying a six-course banquet that included saddle of lamb and 100 peacocks with cold roast quail, all washed down by 410 cases of wine, 1,000 bottles of champagne, and 12 bottles of an 1860 vintage cognac. Had Trump been president in 1971, he would certainly have been invited and, we might assume based on his predilection for pomp and ceremony, would quite possibly have attended.

Unfortunately for the shah this was not the case with many of the ‘A-listers’ he did invite: President Richard Nixon and Queen Elizabeth II were among the no-shows. Far more important was that the event cemented the perception that the shah was hopelessly out of touch. The party was a gift to his opponents. People were starving on the streets of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini declared in the build-up to the party, yet the shah was spending millions of dollars helping foreign dignitaries enjoy themselves in the height of luxury. It was a compelling argument. ‘The monarchy in Iran’, Khomeini continued, ‘has inflicted miseries and perpetuated enormous crimes. The crimes of Persian shahs have blackened the pages of history.’ Within eight years Khomeini was supreme leader of the Islamic Republic.

The Shah’s Party can be a confusing read. Templer takes us to the event, only to pull back to the time of Cyrus, and then forward 2,500 years to Khomeini’s revolution. Templer – in vogue with the current rehabilitation of the Pahlavi regime – often seems keen to offer a positive spin on the shah’s legacy. Yes, the party was excessive, but it was comparable to other well-known ‘parties of the century’. Templer references the publisher Malcolm Forbes, who hired Concorde to fly 600 guests to his 70th birthday party at a palace in Tangiers, and the socialite Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, who threw a surreal shindig in a 19th-century château decorated to look as though it was on fire. (Of course, neither of them were heads of state controlling the fates of millions.) Yes, the shah imprisoned and executed political opponents, but at nothing like the rate of the regime that followed. Some of Templer’s asides – Princess Anne was apparently burdened with something he calls ‘Hanoverian resting face’ – will not be to every reader’s tastes. But The Shah’s Party does remind us that, although the shah and Khomeini agreed on almost nothing, both understood the power of Iran’s cultural nationalism.

• The Shah’s Party and the Iranian Revolution That Followed
  Robert Templer
  Hurst, 420pp, £19.99
  Buy from bookshop.org (affiliate link)

Kieran Connell teaches history at Queen’s University Belfast.