Kinzer reconstructs the U.S. CIA's 1953 overthrow of the elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, who was wildly popular for having nationalized his country's oil industry. The coup ushered in the long and brutal dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Shah, widely seen as a U.S. puppet. A veteran New York Times foreign correspondent, he shows that until early in 1953, Great Britain and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company were imperialist baddies.