In 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini¡¦s followers abducted 66 American diplomats and citizens and held them in Tehran for 444 days in what would become known as the Iranian Hostage Crisis. It marked the birth of radical Islam and the beginning of the West¡¦s conflict with militant Islam. After six years of in-depth interviews and painstaking research, acclaimed author Mark Bowden is able to present the definitive version of this crisis. It is a sweeping and shocking story told through the eyes of the hostages, their Iranian captors and the special operations soldiers who attempted to bring it to an end with a secret rescue mission, ¡¥Operation Eagle Claw¡¦, which ended disastrously when American helicopters crashed in a sandstorm. Guests of the Ayatollah is the epic ¡V and eerily timely ¡V account of the event that changed for ever how the West saw itself and the rest of the world.
