Reza Shah Pahlavi, the man who founded the last monarchic dynasty in Iran's long history, was, by all accounts the greatest public figure of his nation in the 20th century.His rise from a modest background- he was a semi-literate son of a poor peasant family- to kingship is the stuff of dreams.His success in reuniting Iran and transforming it from a ramshackle feudal state into a modern one is almost incredible.Thus his life should have provided the material for a highly readable biography.Sadly this is not the case with Mr. Ghani's hefty book.Ghani has managed to make an exciting life sound almost dull.He has also failed to analyse any of the events he reports, almost exculively based on British archive material.The story of Reza Shah is still waiting to be written by a real biographer.J. Sherian