An Unofficial 'The Rest Is History' Reading List

637. Revolution in Iran: Rise of the Ayatollah (Part 2)

January 22, 2026

Description

What set off the final uprisings of the Iranian Revolution, against the last Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi? Would President Jimmy Carter and America back the Shah’s forbidding opponent, the...

Books Referenced

Revolution in Iran

Author: Michael Axworthy

Context:

The host referenced Axworthy's book when discussing whether the Shah could have succeeded if he had given the green light to crack down on demonstrations, saying 'even if the Shah had not been ill, what would he have done? Where is the magic wand that would have sorted things out?'

The Wretched of the Earth

Author: Frantz Fanon

Context:

The hosts discussed how the Ayatollah's Quranic phrase 'the disinherited of the earth' echoed this famous phrase from Fanon's 1961 book, which 'is really the foundational text of kind of post-colonial theory.'

Rabbit is Rich

Author: John Updike

Context:

The host mentioned this novel set in 1979 where the everyman character Harry Angstrom 'is always whinging about inflation' and 'puts his money into South African Krugerrands in the novel because he tells his wife this is a way to deal with their savings being eroded by inflation.'