...In "Guests of the Ayatollah," Mark Bowden revivifies this crucial episode by parachuting us back to 1979 and enveloping us in the thoughts and experiences of the American hostages--the diplomats, security officers, U.S. Marines and spooks seized and abused by the "Students Following the Line of the Imam," as they called themselves. The hostages numbered 66 in all; 14 were released before the end of the crisis, which lasted 444 days. Three were held in the more civilized confines of the Iranian Foreign Ministry. (Mr. Bowden does some of his finest writing recounting the increasingly surreal existence of this second small group, who became "guests"-cum-prisoners.)

Mr. Bowden subtitles his book "The First Battle in America's War With Militant Islam"--and he is certainly right in underscoring the entire saga as a formative moment for contemporary Islamic militancy. Sunni fundamentalism, as an ideology inclined to see terrorism as a legitimate activity, predated the rise of the Shiite Khomeini. But the ayatollah's triumph over the shah and over his primary foreign backer--the U.S.--globally supercharged Islamic radicalism...