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?
