The Loneliest Revolution

In this first-hand account of the Iranian Revolution, Mirsepassi deftly weaves together his memories of provincial life and radical activism in 1960s and 1970s Iran with insights gleaned in his subsequent career as a sociologist of Iran.

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A memoir of life in Iran in the tumultuous years leading up to the 1979 revolution'Offers an intimate window onto the Iranian revolution just when we need to be thinking about it the most' - Marjane Satrapi, writer and film director



Recounts the political contests between Islamists, leftists, and others culminating in one of the twentieth century's most surprising revolutions
Combines the sensitivity of a memoir with the expertise of a scholarly study to explore lesser-known figures and events in the Iranian revolution's history
Shifts 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 levels

In 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.