The loneliest revolution: a memoir of solidarity and struggle in Iran

In: Edinburgh historical studies of Iran and the Persian world

Abstract

Recounts the political contests between Islamists, leftists, and others culminating in one of the twentieth century's most surprising revolutionsCombines the sensitivity of a memoir with the expertise of a scholarly study to explore lesser-known figures and events in the Iranian revolution's historyShifts the center of Iran's revolutionary history away from its capital to its provinces in an attempt to show how the global and local interacted at multiple levelsIn October 1978, a day that started like any other for Ali Mirsepassi – full of anti-Shah protests – ended in near death. He was stabbed and dumped in a ditch on the outskirts of Tehran for having spoken against Khomeini. In this book, Mirsepassi digs up this and other painful memories to ask: How did the Iranian revolutionary movement come to this? How did a people united in solidarity and struggle end up so divided? In this first-hand account, Mirsepassi deftly weaves together his insights as a sociologist of Iran with his memories of provincial life and radical activism in 1960s and 1970s Iran. Attentive to the everyday struggles Iranians faced as they searched for ways to learn about and make history despite state surveillance and censorship, The Loneliest Revolution revisits questions of leftist failure and Islamist victory and ultimately asks us all to probe the memories, personal and collective, that we leave unspoken