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7 - “A Sky Drowning in Stars”:

Global ’68, the Death of Takhti, and the Birth of the Iranian Revolution

from Part III - Hidden Genealogies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2021

Arang Keshavarzian
Affiliation:
New York University
Ali Mirsepassi
Affiliation:
New York University
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Summary

This chapter reconstructs rumors and demonstrations in 1968 around the death of Gholamreza Takhti, Iran's beloved gold-winning wrestling champion, recentering them in the history of the 1979 revolution and the global 1960s. The account of the demonstrations provided here explains a mobilization tactic used to great effect in the lead up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution: the staging of protests on the fortieth day of mourning. Locating this tactic in 1968, at a moment of global protest, and before ideological disputes between leftists and Islamists congealed in Iran, casts a spotlight on the indeterminate quality of the revolution as a lived event. The authors argue that discussions of “global 1968,” and approaches to global history more broadly construed, must account both for the local specificity and the global echoes signaled by events like the Takhti demonstrations.

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Chapter
Information
Global 1979
Geographies and Histories of the Iranian Revolution
, pp. 213 - 244
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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