Reza Aslan on An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville: Nonfiction

Reza Aslan, a writer and scholar of religions, is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Zealot, No God but God, and editor of Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East. In An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville (W. W. Norton & Company), Aslan explores the story of Howard Baskerville, a student of Woodrow Wilson at Princeton. Baskerville is a believer in the gospel of Jesus – and Wilson’s, by which constitutional democracy is the birthright of all nations. Rather than follow his father’s path, a small-town minister in South Dakota, Baskerville volunteered for missionary service in Persia. Tabriz, in 1907, was a hotbed of democratic revolution, and some of his students at the Presbyterian school were both firebrands and devoted friends. He lectured on freedom; they dedicated their lives to it. Soon, he joined them on the battlefield. Was Baskerville the “American Lafayette” of Iran or a naive “white savior” stumbling into Persian affairs? His story raises a critical question: How seriously do we take our ideas of constitutional democracy, and whose freedom do we support?