Yeganeh Torbati & Bozorgmehr Sharafedin — Stolen Revolution
Two veteran Iran correspondents discuss their new account of the Iranian Revolution's betrayal — and what the rise and collapse of reformist hope reveals about power and resistance.
Why we picked this
Both authors reported from Iran for major Western outlets and understand the Islamic Republic from the inside — this is not a polemical account but a reported history of how revolutionary idealism curdled into authoritarian consolidation.
Yeganeh Torbati, who has reported for Reuters and ProPublica from Iran and Washington, and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, a Reuters correspondent based in London who covered Iran’s reform movements for years, bring their combined decades of reporting to Stolen Revolution: Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran. The book traces the arc from the 1979 revolution’s genuine popular energy to the systematic suppression of reformist movements by a clerical establishment determined to hold power.
The event features David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times and one of the most authoritative voices on US foreign policy and nuclear negotiations, as moderator. That combination — two deeply sourced correspondents and a foreign policy journalist of Sanger’s caliber — promises a conversation that goes beyond summary to genuine analysis.
Stolen Revolution arrives as Iran faces another generation of protest movements, and as nuclear negotiations once again shape the country’s relationship with the West. Torbati and Sharafedin’s historical account provides the essential context for understanding why these cycles repeat.