The Coup

Ervand Abrahamian's The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations offers a concise, archival-based account of the 1953 overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, detailing the roles of the CIA and British intelligence amid Cold War geopolitics and oil interests; it situates the coup within longer patterns of imperialism and domestic politics, shows how the reinstatement of the Shah entrenched authoritarian rule and deepened anti-American sentiment, and argues that this episode was a decisive turning point shaping the trajectory of U.S.-Iranian relations up to the 1979 revolution and beyond.