Let the Swords Encircle Me:  Iran – A Journey Behind the Headlines [Simon & Schuster, September 21, 2010] is the result of  more than 30 extended reporting trips to Iran since 1996 made by Scott Peterson, one of the most well traveled and experienced foreign correspondents of his generation.

This book gives a colorful and incisive portrait of a complex, contradictory and volatile nation. Iran is a diverse society that is largely, and often deliberately, hidden from Western eyes. A bastion of revolutionary radicalism, Iran also has the most pro-American population in the Muslim Middle East.  Peterson has heard the ritual shouts of “Death to America” but also has witnessed a crowd of Iranians spontaneously prevent an American flag from being burned by militants.

Gary Sick, senior research scholar at Columbia University SIPA Middle East Institute, will act as interlocutor. Sick was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and he, like Peterson, has a depth of knowledge about the enigmatic country of Iran.