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FEATURING BEHROOZ GHAMARI – Nearly 40 years ago, a major revolution took place in Iran to overthrow the Western backed-Shah. The Iranian revolution was a pivotal moment in world history that continues to have repercussions today. A legacy of the late 1970s that remains intact in today’s Iran, is the imprisonment of dissidents. Iran’s infamous practice of incarcerating people for political reasons forms the basis of a beautifully written story called Remembering Akbar: Inside the Iranian Revolution.

Behrooz Ghamari, Professor of History and Sociology at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His earlier books include Islam and Dissent in Postrevolutionary Iran and Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment. His latest book is called Remembering Akbar: Inside the Iranian Revolution.