The Islamic Revolution of Iran is the biggest political event in the closing decades of the 20th century.
The grassroots movement led to the fall of Mohammad Reza Shah and the rise of a new political system under the name of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
At the time when religion was farthest away from politics both in the liberal West and the Communist East, in Iran this new system was in essence the confluence of religion and democracy; and from the very beginning, it drew attention from across the world, in particular from the Western intelligentsia who were curious to know more about this fledging religious republic.