Howard Baskerville is an obscure figure today, but for a brief period at the very beginning of the 20th century he was the subject of global newspaper headlines. A recent college graduate who'd studied under future U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, Baskerville became a Christian missionary in what is now Iran. After a while he gets caught up in the constitutionalist movement then sweeping the country, ends up taking up arms and renouncing his American citizenship, and is shot and killed during the siege of Tabriz. In death, he becomes even more a figurehead for those advocating for reform, though after the Iranian revolution of the 70s, Baskerville's prominence declines thanks to his awkward American origin.

Reza Aslan clearly admires Baskerville, or certainly admires what he thinks Baskerville represents: a kind of general, humane pursuit of freedom and peace that transcends personal and group differences. He also is drawn to Baskerville's ability to link two countries for which Aslan clearly has great affection. But one major reservation I had with this book is that Aslan's framing of Baskerville and his behaviour seems to be, if not entirely cynical, then certainly almost wilfully selective. Aslan seems to not want to really grapple with the implications of the fact that, as he himself acknowledges, Baskerville acts not in spite of or in transcendence of his goals as an evangelical Christian missionary, but to fulfil them. I didn't find myself admiring Baskerville the way that Aslan did—I thought he was a fairly naive guy who, if asked, probably thought Manifest Destiny was a great thing to pursue.

What, in other words, did Baskerville think he was being martyred for? (If indeed that's the term we should use.)

Not that we can know what Baskerville thought on that topic since he left almost no written accounts behind him and much of his life is poorly documented—even when it comes to the great transatlantic voyage which took Baskerville from the U.S. to Europe and on to Tabriz, Aslan can only make a best guess as to which ports he arrived at.

By the end of the book I found myself thinking that Baskerville could have—should have—been confined to a single chapter. But then, would Aslan have been able to appeal to and to flatter American sensibilities so readily? (Because this not a book intended for any other audience, I don't think.) ( )