In his retelling of the defiance and tragedy of the Zhina uprising in Iran, Hamid Dabashi asks: What constitutes the success of revolutions and how do we measure their failures?

In September 2022, a young Kurdish woman, Zhina Mahsa Amini, was killed in police custody for failing to observe the strict dress code imposed on Iranian women. Her death sparked a massive social uprising within and outside of Iran. The slogan, “Woman, Life, Freedom,” spread like wildfire from Amini’s hometown to solidarity protests held in London, New York, Melbourne, Paris, Seoul and beyond. The pain felt by millions of Iranians, caused by the Islamic Republic, was on the global stage again.

Yet, misreadings of the Zhina uprising—both accidental and insidious—began to proliferate. In Iran in Revolt, Dabashi cuts through the noise to provide a careful and principled account of the revolution, and how it has forever altered the nature of politics in Iran and the wider region.

Dabashi argues that “democracy” and the “nation-state” are tired concepts, exploring what it means to fight for a just society instead. Through detailed political, philosophical, and historical analysis, Dabashi shows that the vulnerable lives and fragile liberties of nations have never been so intimately connected, just as the pernicious cruelties of ruling regimes have never been so identical as they are today.