In 1921 Riza Khan, a colonel in the Iranian Cossack Brigade, rode on Tehran and, in a military coup that was to change Iran's destiny, took power. Appropriating the state-building objectives of Iranian constitutionalism and nationalism, Riza Khan embarked on the task of constructing a strong, modern, centralized state at the heart of which lay a new national army.

Ruthless and cunning, he used the emergent military and political institutions to crush both civilian and military opposition, and in 1926 crowned himself Shah of Iran.

But in the construction of his army Riza Khan relied upon the material bequeathed to him by the reform efforts of the late nineteenth century and the constitutional revolution.

This unique book - the first to discuss in detail the way in which the modern Iranian army was created - puts the rise of Riza Shah into sorely needed historical context and outlines, in a careful analysis of the way in which Riza ensured the army over civil institutions such as parliament and the provincial authorities, the military roots of monarchical dictatorship in Iran.