New York Times veteran war correspondent Scott Anderson has seen revolutions come and go. He has reported from Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Sudan, Bosnia, El Salvador, and many other strife-torn countries. An acclaimed novelist, he also has an MFA from the University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop.

His newest book (a finalist for the 2025 Kirkus Prize) is King of Kings, in which he weaves a spellbinding tale around the egotistical Iranian shah who blindly led a superpower to its downfall. The Iranian Revolution, Anderson convincingly argues, was as world-shattering an event as the French and Russian revolutions. In the Middle East, in India, in Southeast Asia, in Europe, and the United States, the hatred of economically-marginalized, religiously-fervent masses for a wealthy secular elite has led to violence and upheaval—and Iran was the template. King of Kings is a bravura work of history, and a warning.

Join Anderson and Marcello Di Cintio (whose 2007 travel memoir Poets and Pahlevans provided a detailed impression of a country and society that will challenge most, if not all, preconceptions) for a Sunday morning excavation of key revolutions past—and a window into the present and the literally not-so-distant future.