Books like Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden

A comprehensive nonfiction narrative tracing the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, al‑Qaida, and U.S. intelligence failures leading to the 9/11 attacks.

A detailed, document‑based account of the CIA‑backed 1953 coup in Iran and its lasting repercussions.

A revealing portrait of Allen Dulles, the CIA’s longest‑serving director, uncovering his influence over U.S. policy, covert operations, and alleged links to assassinations and global intrigue.

Bob Woodward explains how President Donald Trump made key foreign and domestic decisions inside the White House, drawing on extensive interviews, notes and documents.

"On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took sixty-six Americans captive. Thus began the Iran hostage crisis, an affair that captivated the American public for 444 days and marked America's first confrontation with the forces of radical Islam. Using hundreds of recently declassified government documents, historian David Farber takes the first in-depth look at the hostage crisis, examining its lessons for America's contemporary war on terrorism." "Unlike other histories of the subject, Farber's narrative looks beyond the day-to-day circumstances of the crisis, using the events leading up to the ordeal as a means for understanding it. The book paints a portrait of the 1970s in the United States as an era of failed expectations in a nation plagued by uncertainty and anxiety. It reveals an American government ill prepared for the fall of the Shah of Iran and unable to reckon with the Ayatollah Khomeini and his militant Islamic followers."--BOOK JACKET.