Little known in America but venerated as a martyr in Iran, Howard
Baskerville was a twenty-two-year-old Christian missionary from South
Dakota who traveled to Persia (modern-day Iran) in 1907 for a two-year
stint teaching English and preaching the gospel. He arrived in the midst
of a democratic revolution--the first of its kind in the Middle
East--led by a group of brilliant young firebrands committed to
transforming their country into a fully self-determining, constitutional
monarchy, one with free elections and an independent parliament.
The Persian students Baskerville educated in English in turn educated
him about their struggle for democracy, ultimately inspiring him to
leave his teaching post and join them in their fight against a
tyrannical shah and his British and Russian backers. "The only
difference between me and these people is the place of my birth,"
Baskerville declared, "and that is not a big difference."
In 1909, Baskerville was killed in battle alongside his students, but
his martyrdom spurred on the revolutionaries who succeeded in removing
the shah from power, signing a new constitution, and rebuilding
parliament in Tehran. To this day, Baskerville's tomb in the city of
Tabriz remains a place of pilgrimage. Every year, thousands of Iranians
visit his grave to honor the American who gave his life for Iran.
In this rip-roaring tale of his life and death, Aslan gives us a
powerful parable about the universal ideals of democracy--and to what
degree Americans are willing to support those ideals in a foreign land.
Woven throughout is an essential history of the nation we now know as
Iran--frequently demonized and misunderstood in the West. Indeed,
Baskerville's life and death represent a "road not taken" in Iran.
Baskerville's story, like his life, is at the center of a whirlwind in
which Americans must ask themselves: How seriously do we take our ideals
of constitutional democracy and whose freedom do we support?
