The broken promises of the 1979 Iranian Revolution
Sources & Methods
NPR
4.9 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Summary
That country? It's Iran in 1979 during the revolution.
The path from 1979, with the toppling of a monarch, through the decades of oppression and economic turmoil that followed, to this current moment, is mapped out in the book: “Stolen Revolution: Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran.”
Host Mary Louise Kelly speaks with reporter and co-author Yeganeh Torbati about her new book, which follows six ordinary Iranians who -- through their lived experiences -- provide rare insight into the hopes and fears of people living from the revolution through decades of turmoil.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We sort of see through his eyes both the promise of the revolution and why he believed in it and also kind of what happened to that promise over time. |
| 0:09.1 | There's a country heavily influenced by, quote, a movement that harbored dreams of social justice, equality, independence, and political freedom. |
| 0:20.0 | Can you guess it? This is sources and methods |
| 0:22.4 | for NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. That country I was just describing, it's Iran, or at least |
| 0:30.4 | Iran at the time of the 1979 revolution. The path from 1979 with the toppling of a monarch through the decades of oppression and economic turmoil that followed to this current moment is mapped out in the book Stolen Revolution, Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran. |
| 0:50.0 | Co-author and journalist Jegina Torbati is here to talk to us about it in this special episode of the podcast. |
| 0:57.0 | We've spent so much time here. |
| 0:58.6 | These last few months talking about the current war in Iran, it felt worthwhile to dig deep on Yegana's reporting on some of the forces and people who brought Iran to this moment. |
| 1:09.8 | Yigen and Torbati, welcome. Thank you so much for |
| 1:11.7 | having me. So I was so eager to read this book because it feels like we've got Iran in the |
| 1:16.3 | headlines every day right now. But missing from the coverage is often the voices of ordinary |
| 1:23.1 | Iranians, which you have six of them in this book, six Iranians. Tell me how you picked them. |
| 1:30.4 | How did you arrive at this particular group? |
| 1:32.7 | My co-author and I really wanted to be able to tell the story of Iran through a diverse set of |
| 1:39.2 | sources and through the experiences of both ordinary people and then also people who had at one point or another |
| 1:45.2 | held great power and influence inside the country and really sort of show what had happened |
| 1:50.8 | since the 1979 revolution through their eyes. So in this book, there's a story of a cleric |
| 1:57.2 | who is a devoted follower of the founder of the revolution, who rises to great power, |
| 2:02.9 | and then is ousted. And we sort of see through his eyes both the promise of the revolution |
| 2:07.3 | and why he believed in it and also kind of what happened to that promise over time. |
| 2:12.1 | There's a poet activist who was part of the reform movement and then the green movement. |
| 2:17.1 | There's a businessman who I think |
... |
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