Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam

by David Farber

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 vivid and fast-paced 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.


Farber's account is filled with fresh insights regarding the central players in the Khomeini emerges as an astute strategist, single-mindedly dedicated to creating an Islamic state. The Americans' student-captors appear as less-than-organized youths, having prepared for only a symbolic sit-in with just a three-day supply of food. ABC news chief Roone Arledge, newly installed and eager for ratings, is cited as a critical catalyst in elevating the hostages to cause célèbre status.


Throughout the book there emerge eerie parallels to the current terrorism crisis. Then as now, Farber demonstrates, politicians failed to grasp the depth of anger that Islamic fundamentalists harbored toward the United States, and Americans dismissed threats from terrorist groups as the crusades of ineffectual madmen.



Taken Hostage is a timely and revealing history of America's first engagement with terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, one that provides a chilling reminder that the past is only prologue.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Iran, Middle East, American History, Read For School

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

David Farber is the Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Kansas.

Reviews

[Mostafa · Rating 4 out of 5]

تبقى أزمة الرهائن، والثورة الإيرانية وما يحيط بها، واحدة من المواضيع التي لا أمل من القراءة عنها أو مشاهدة أي وثائقي عنها، الكتاب عمومًا أقُيم من خلاله وثائقي "رهائن" التابع لشبكة إتش بي او ووثائقي "مأخوذون رهائن" التابع للبي بي إس الأمريكية لمن أحب أن يُثري ما هو مقروء بالصورة والتفاعلات الحية الخاصة بها، ولكن يتميز كتاب فاربر هذا، بأنه لا يضعك فقط من خلال عدسة الحدث في إيران، فالكاتب يعرض صورة بانورامية رائعة للوضع الأمريكي الداخلي في السبعينيات بين نيكسون وكارتر، وبورتريهات عن التنافسات الشخصية التي حددت إتجاهات السياسة الأمريكية الخارجية بين كيسينجر وبريجينسكي.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I failed to pay attention to this when it was happening. It had much larger impact on things in the US than I realized. Good book.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely an introductory text: it's short, accessible, but I don't feel like I learned a ton of new stuff. Also it takes a long time to get to the actual hostage crisis. I think this is a good book for getting the larger context of this crisis (US and Iranian politics), but not if you are already fairly well versed in those histories.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

dry but clear recap of the late-70's Iranian hostage crisis and what led up to it. A high school senior/college freshman year flashback for me -- waiting in long gas lines, "Nightline" nee "America Held Hostage" on ABC, endless stories on the President-Carter-is-inept theme (the usual symbols/incidents are reviewed here -- "lust in my heart" interview, "malaise" speech in which he did not use the word "malaise", whacking at the crazed rabbit with a paddle, handling the White House tennis court reservations himself.........).

Some of the analysis sounded like wisdom from a good couples therapist mediating an America-Carter separation agreement -- what drives you nuts about someone (lack of efficacy in getting stuff thru Congress; lack of foreign policy experience/expertise) is the flip side of what attracts you in the beginning (he's an outsider! he's not like Nixon! he's honest and dependable!).

To be fair to Jimmy Carter, though, it's not clear from the historical material presented here that we had a lot of great options in responding to Iranian revolution. The whole thing made me appreciate the wisdom of recent Jeopardy teen tournament champ [from my daughter's high school -- go Rockets!], whose ambition is to be "ex-president of the United States -- with all the perks and prestige but none of the day to day pressure".

[Missy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me just say that the beginning of this book, for me, was incredibly dry. However, once Farber was able to get past all the info we needed to understand the hostage crisis, I felt like I couldn't put down the book. I will admit that being born in 1991 does not give me an excuse to not know the details of American history with the Middle East. I had never heard of the hostage crisis before. But I must say,Farber does a great job because I was glued to the pages trying to figure out what could get those hostages released as the Carter administration tried plan after plan.

The only problem I had with this book is that it doesn't full explain what the crisis has to do with relations to Iran today. It has a tiny bit of info on the Reagan administration and the Iran-Contra which is the bridge between the hostage crisis and "war on terror."

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of dry, professor-ish set up (it's a 190-page book and doesn't even get to the actual hostage event until page 130) but interesting look at Carter's presidency and the American psyche during late 70s.

[T H · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a college student, this book presents the hostage crisis (and a lot of the historical baggage leading up to it) in a way that's easy to follow and generally engaging - even in the throws of exhaustion-induced brain-death. Some bits bored me to tears - others had me exhaling a laugh. Overall I think it was worth reading, esp. if you have any interest in understanding modern terrorism.

Normally I have some trouble keeping track of names, dates, etc. but Farber is a good story teller without straying into wordy rambling, and he presents his research in simple, blunt terms. Some moments get a bit too far into the economics side of things for me (just find it dry, tbh) but there weren't too many points where I really had any trouble being interested in his writing.

A fair warning, as others have said, this isn't some action-packed story of a hostage situation. Farber presents historical data leading up to the crisis for some 130ish pages, and of course lingers on the public response (yellow ribbons, Carter struggling, television feeding into American anger, etc.), and then wraps up the actual hostage situation pretty quickly. There's nothing in this book that I would call, "exciting," although I can feel my history prof cringing as I type that.

Of course, Farber's work putting this all together is an important piece for historians, but I'll leave all that for someone more qualified.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting look into the country Iran leading up to the 444 day Hostage situation of 50 plus Americans. The final 20 or so pages cover the hostage situation and the recovery of the Americans. But the bulk of the book focuses on the US’ presidential leadership in the 1970s as they tried to keep the heir (Shah) in power. The people revolted, preferring an Islamic influence. The longer the Shah remained in power, the angrier the Iranians became with America.

As the final page says,

“Who knows what good might have come if American policy makers, supported by the American people, had paid greater attention to the lessons of the Iranian debacle. A simple first step would have been to take political Islam seriously by paying respects to its advocates and seeking to understand it as a force in the world. A massive foreign aid investment in the educational and vocational infrastructure of the Islamic world would have been, in retrospect, a cost-effective and change-directed policy. And lastly, a genuine American commitment to creating a just settlement in the Palestinian-Israeli struggle could have changed regional perspective of the US global role.”

[Carolyn Wagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not so much a book about the hostage situation in Iran as it is about the failure of Jimmy Carter's presidency. The hostage situation itself is covered in about 10% of the book. The rest is devoted to the United States' involvement in Iranian government over the previous 40-50 years and to the ineffectiveness of the Carter administration over its 4-year tenure. As others have noted, it is a very dry book and sometimes hard to plow through. There was no mention of the hostages by name, save for 2 or 3 top embassy staff and 2 of the hostages that were released early. If you are looking for something centered on the hostage crisis and the hostages themselves, the failed rescue attempt, the negotiations for their release, keep looking.

[Hussein Harbi · Rating 3 out of 5]

قرأتُ الترجمة العربية، الصادرة عن جداول في بيروت ٢٠٢٢، بترجمة محمد العربي:

هذا الكتاب، ليس عن خطف عاملي السفارة الأمريكية في طهران في ١٩٧٩ فحسب، وإنما عن انفجار أسعار النفط في السبعينيات وهزيمة الروح الأمريكيّة والصراع بين الغرب والعالم الثالث ورؤية الولايات المتحدة المغرورة للآخر وتعاون إدارتها مع أجهزة المخابرات في الدول الديكتاتورية والخوف الشديد من المد السوفييتي وتباين الرؤى السياسية بين بيرجنسكي وكيسنجر والفرق الكبير بين تديّن الخميني الثوريّ وتديّن كارتر التقويّ!. وقبل كلّ ذلك العودة إلى نشوء الدولة في بلد عالمثالثيّ وتمدّد بلد إمبريالي (تأميم مصدّق للنفط الإيراني وتدّخل المخابرات الأمريكيّة في عودة الشاه للحكم).

[Bethany Scheel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stellar writing even about the less than ideal subject

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Iran: you can have the hostages if you give us the shah

Carter: i want the hostages

Iran: ok just give us the shah first

Carter: 😔 no

[Faisal Jamal · Rating 3 out of 5]

لم يتكلم عن ازمة الرهائن الا في اخر فصلين وكان في الغالب شرح لظروف السياسة الامريكية في السبعينيات

[David Classing · Rating 5 out of 5]

After hearing a report on CNN this week that Iran wants to send as its UN Ambassador one of the former US Embassy Hostage Takers, I realized, though the defining foreign relations news story of my childhood, I did not know much about why the Americans were held. Hearing Iran's official explanation on why the US should grant their new proposed UN Ambassador a visa merely because he was a "student" at the time I decided to read a couple of books about the subject. First, to debunk Iran's argument that he was "merely a student" at the time of the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran, it should be noted that ALL OF THE KIDNAPPERS from Iran who stormed the Embassy were students...

Farber's book is very simple to read, and instead of beginning in the 1970s to define this crisis, he starts his history during the Eisenhower years, and how the US CIA helped to topple the Iranian leader of the time, Muhammad Mossadegh, all in the name of Western control of Iranian oil (sound familiar?). Operation Ajax installed Muhammad Reza Pahlavi (the Shah) in his place and Farber draws on the history of Iran and how the Shah was exiled once Khomeni gained influence, and how Pahlavi was reinstalled as Iranian leader and Khomeni exiled later on, until 1979. The book details the history of Western influence over Iran, particularly the western controlling influence of Iran's oil, and how changes in Iranian culture led to changes in how agreements were negotiated with the West.

Farber also details the malaise spreading across the United States after Watergate and how it, along with economic factors, stagflation, high unemployment, etc, affected the Carter administration. He does a great job of showing how Carter tried to change policies, but those changes were not happening. Then in 1979, more heartache as a group of a couple hundred Iranian students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and held the American workers hostage for 444 days. Using declassified documents, Farber details the differing viewpoints and strategies espoused by different Carter administration officials, though Farber seems to utilize more of Zbigniew Brezinski's documents.

If you're looking for a detailed account of those 444 days, this is not the book for you. This is an easy book to read; I read it in about 1.5 days. You'll have a better understanding of what happened during those 444 days. If you, however, know a bit of what happened and the reasons for it, then you probably shouldn't read this book as one might find it too simplistic.

[Tara Busch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Farber argues the hostage crisis was Americas first encounter with radical Islam & demonstrates how the US leadership was unprepared, not understanding the motives of their adversaries. He shows how American media and the public misunderstood US foreign policy, yet the Iranians did not! They understood the US pod better than Americans, and used this knowledge.
Farber spends a large part of the book showing this crisis as a failure of American foreign policy going back decades which failed to understand the radicals or the Iranian pod, and simply labeled everyone as "nuts", failing to recognize the divisions in the country, the long memory and the deep resentment of the Iranian people toward the Shah & the US (his biggest supporters)
Farber also demonstrates how the crisis hit on cold War fears of communist control of middle east oil.
Great read!!

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a particularly timely read with the prisoner swap today (1/16/16). It focuses on the events leading up to the Iranian hostage crisis, why Iranians felt the way they did and why Americans felt the way they did, and how the governments handled the whole thing. Insightful and interesting, however, I would've liked more about how the hostages were handled, their conditions, what it was like, etc., but that wasn't included. I would recommend it for those who want to know more about the motivations and reactions surrounding the hostage crisis.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a decent history of the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis of dozens of U.S. diplomats which followed. However, the author has difficulty sticking to his subject, and spends lots of time talking about other trends in the 1970s in general, which he never relates to his subject, and giving his personal views about just about everything that happened. While there is good information in this book, the reader will have to wade through a lot of dross in order to find it.

[Roxy Moran · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was missing a lot of analysis on the actual hostage crisis itself. 75% of the book was devoted to the hostage crisis' origins, only a single chapter to the actual crisis. Writing was fine though, title is misleading. Definitely not that much information on 'radical islam,' or whatever that the author thinks that means.

[Dirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thin but nicely done recounting of the Iranian hostage crisis

[Taylor McDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

boring.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

An accessible diplomatic history re-examining a well known moment