Operation Ajax: The Story of the CIA Coup that Remade the Middle East

I'm not at all a fan of comic books - never understood them when I was a kid, still don't. I am, however, very interested in post WWI mid east history. After I first read All the Shah's Men (from which this book draws) my immediate reaction was "How has no one made a movie about this?" I mean, as completely disgusting and immoral and destructive as Operation Ajax was, it is a hell of a story.Well this is basically that movie. Unlike Shah's Men, which is of course a historical narrative of events, this tells the story of the CIA coup much like a good movie might: through the experiences of the characters involved, what they may have said, and may have seen. The drawings are fantastic, full of emotion, and always setting the appropriate mood for the story.Highly, highly recommended!

If you think you understand the Middle East, but you don't know the story of Operation Ajax, then you probably don't actually understand the Middle East. This gorgeous, complex graphic novel expertly tells the little-known true story of a CIA operation which essentially overthrew the democratically-elected government of Iran in the 1950s.It's an utterly-engrossing, masterfully-woven tapestry of intrigue, conspiracy, politics, ambition and avarice laid out across the globe.This is a brilliant, important book, and I, quite simply, cannot recommend it highly enough!

This book starts to fall apart as soon as you open it. Please try another method. The content of the book was well written and easy to understand. The illustration was amazing.

I didn't realize this was a graphic novel. I thought id be getting some deeper info and source information

Innovative way to tell this complex period of history.

This book presents historically accurate information in the form of a graphic novel. This is a story everyone should know, given the current political climate.

I first read Operation Ajax as an app and loved it. I wanted to teach it a few years ago, but I couldn't require students to have a tablet, so I was thrilled last fall when I realized there was a book version. I understood that the book version would, of necessity, lose some of the charm of the app--sound effects, sliding panels, embedded dossiers and news reels; but even without those perks, the book was brilliant and beautiful. I was irritated at the lack of page numbers, especially since I was using it as a college composition course text which teaches, among other things, textual citation. But lack of page numbers is a fairly common error (imo) in graphic texts, so I considered the error a teachable moment and moved on. What's not forgivable and what makes the lack of numbers more troubling is the quality of stitching and glue: after just a few weeks everyone's book started falling literally to pieces--pages scatter everywhere and it's bloody difficult reassembling them w/out numbers. If it had just been one or two books, I would have let it slide, but it was everyone's book. I wrote the publisher and heard nothing back. I assigned my students to write the publisher and they, to date, have heard nothing back. I don't know if all Verso Books are this shoddy or if Verso always has such crappy customer service, but I will avoid them in the future. Sorry authors, you had a lovely project and Verso screwed you.

Gift for my adult son who loves it.

Sehr geehdte Damen,vielen Dank für die Zusendung des Buches.Leider enthält wenig Textze, ansonsten sind die Bilder gutMit Dank und freundlichen GrüssenDr. AL-TomaMarburg, den 01. 12. 2017

Interesting book for curious minds about Iran and United States relationship during 1950s and CIA planning top overthrow Mossadegh's government but lacks accuracies in many areas. Portraits Shah as a total evil, womanizing, drunk, idiot, and his sister, Ashraf, as a very loose woman. Hardly fair characterizations.

Super interesting story; I had read the book first which is totally amazing and captivating; in my view it has the potential to change your view on pretty much any news items you watch about the ME perhaps and definitely about Iran eve after.

The book has terrible binding and pages start to fall out on the first read. The pages have no page numbers so it becomes a nightmare after a while. Apart from that, it is an interesting read and quite well drawn. I would have appreciated if the book could stay in one piece

Beautiful drawings of a very important episode in Middle East history. But the quality of the book is appalling. It’s binding is falling apart during the first read. I wish to exchange it for a better quality binding.