Revolutions: Iran, the Prague Spring, and Ceaușescu’s Fall | History in Photos

Summary

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The Rest Is History | Revolutions: Iran, the Prague Spring, and Ceaușescu’s Fall | History in Photos

Episode Date: March 31, 2026
Hosts: Tom Holland & Dominic Sandbrook
Special Guest: Chris Floyd (portrait photographer)
Theme: Examining how iconic photographs have captured, shaped, and revealed the dramatic events of major 20th-century revolutions, beginning with Iran in 1979.

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Episode Overview

This episode launches a miniseries on the power of photography as a historical tool, focusing on moments when an image defined revolutionary change. Dominic Sandbrook and photographer Chris Floyd discuss how photographs from Iran’s 1979 revolution illuminate both political tumult and deep societal emotions, and they promise future episodes covering Prague Spring, Romania 1989, music, and fashion through the photographic lens.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Role of Photography as Historical Witness

• Photography captures not just events, but the tension, emotion, and raw drama of history (“what photography tells us about history” — 00:25).
• Photographers can become both observers and participants, gaining entry to pivotal moments and influencing how those moments are remembered.
• Many historical images were captured under duress, sometimes requiring smuggling film out of rooms—or countries—to preserve the record.

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Iran 1979: Abbas and the Shaping of Revolutionary Memory (01:15 – 14:16)

The Photographer: Abbas Attar (“Abbas”)

• Abbas is identified as the photographer most synonymous with capturing the Iranian Revolution. Born in Iran, lived in Algeria and Paris, focused his life’s work on “documenting the effect of religion on people” (Chris Floyd, 01:29).
• Abbas had unique access due to his Iranian and Muslim identity: “He has, you know, two cards to play with the regime, I guess, that a Western photographer would not have” (Dominic, 04:24).
• Despite this, his work led to exile; he did not return to Iran for 17 years.

Iconic Images & Their Significance

• Power Gatherings & Political Flux

  • Abbas photographed crucial political moments: Khomeini with other ayatollahs, showcasing the uncertainty of post-revolutionary Iran.
  • “The revolution is in complete flux. Nobody knows necessarily, the Khomeini is going to win and what role he's going to play in the new regime” (Dominic, 02:53).
  • The mood in the room, captured by Abbas, reflects both tension and the precariousness of the outcome.

• Operation Eagle Claw: U.S. Hostage Rescue Failure

  • Abbas photographed the wreckage of American helicopters in the desert after the failed U.S. rescue attempt.
  • “It’s an image of humiliation for the United States...best laid plans and all” (Dominic, 05:21).
  • The image’s desolation—wreckage against the empty desert—visually amplifies American failure.

• U.S. Embassy: The Mob and Western Fear

  • Photos of mobs in front of the U.S. Embassy became iconic in the West, encapsulating what was most unsettling for Americans:
    • “The thing about the mob…becomes the image certainly for the Americans of the Iranian revolution...it’s the sort of frenzy…for people, if you’re sitting in Wisconsin…that’s what people found unsettling” (Dominic, 06:30).
  • Religious symbolism—beards, clerics, and female attire—contributed to a sense of “otherness” and power.

• Women and Revolution: The Unexpected Prominence

  • Abbas’s photos highlight Iranian women, not just as passive figures but active participants (target practice, marches).
  • “It’s interesting how prominent women are often in these photos, isn’t it?” (Dominic, 10:45).
  • The prevalent “austerity...everything about that picture represents a form of austerity doesn’t it?” (Chris, 11:18).

Broader Historical Context

• Much of the revolution’s energy came from the interplay between fervent mass crowds and the self-controlled, austere presence of Khomeini:

  • “The crowds are vast, I mean, millions of people...he taps something...a yearning for traditional values, a sense of solidarity” (Dominic, 10:08).
  • Khomeini’s cold self-control enhanced his mystique: “Peter Jennings says, what do you feel? What are your feelings? And he says, I feel nothing. And there’s something about the sort of...coldness, the self-control...It makes him seem holy” (Dominic, 08:12).

• Revolutions often depend not just on popular support but a highly motivated minority:

  • “It takes quite a small percentage of people if they are fervent enough and motivated enough...passionate enough to really want to join a political party these days” (Chris, 09:37).

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Technical & Philosophical Observations on Photography (11:39+)

• Black and White vs. Color

  • Most iconic images are black and white—not always due to artistic choice, but practicality:
    • “You could process and print black and white film much more easily. Build a darkroom in a hotel room bathroom...Color is much, much more difficult” (Chris, 12:19).
  • Newsprint constraints meant little demand for color until the mid-1980s.

• Purpose and Legacy

  • Most historic photojournalists were driven by events, not “making a book”—they sought to document, and only later were images collected and celebrated.
  • Abbas pursued photography as passion, especially relating to religious movements across faiths, and after 9/11 spent seven years documenting jihadism:
    • “Abbas is someone...drawn to religious projects his whole life...he did a seven-year project on militant Islam after 9/11...in 16 countries” (Chris, 13:41).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Revolutionary Uncertainty:
  “It's obvious to us now, looking back, that we impose a pattern...But nobody knows this at the time.” — Dominic (03:23)

• On Khomeini’s Chilling Aura:
  “Peter Jennings says, what are your feelings? And [Khomeini] says: I feel nothing...It makes him seem holy.” — Dominic (08:12)

• On Revolutionary Crowds:
  “The crowds are vast...I think he taps something—a sense that the country had changed so much...They yearned for reassurance, traditional values, sense of solidarity.” — Dominic (10:08)

• On Black and White Imagery:
  “Because they are...monotonal scenes...everyone is in black...” — Chris (11:39)
  “You could process and print black and white film much more easily...Color was much more difficult to do.” — Chris (12:19)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:25 – Introduction to series' theme: photography as a window into history
• 01:15 – Focus on Iran and the photographer Abbas
• 02:35 – Power struggles and uncertainty of post-revolutionary Iran
• 05:21 – Operation Eagle Claw: American humiliation captured on film
• 06:15 – The mob as a recurring revolutionary image, especially in Iran
• 08:12 – Khomeini's iconic return and mystique
• 10:08 – The scale and emotional energy of revolutionary crowds
• 10:45 – Representation of women in revolution photography
• 11:39 – Why iconic images are black and white
• 12:19 – Technical constraints and market for photojournalism
• 13:41 – Photographers driven by a mission beyond immediate news

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Conclusion

This episode vividly illustrates how iconic images of revolution can encapsulate and even amplify the drama, confusion, and emotion of history—a process shaped by the photographers’ personal backgrounds, aesthetic choices, and sometimes sheer luck or courage. Through the story of Abbas and the Iranian revolution, listeners see how black-and-white images became the visual memory of seismic change. The ongoing series promises deeper exploration into photography’s essential role in witnessing and shaping modern history.

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Hi, everybody.

[A]

Welcome to the Rest Is History. It's Dominic here and I'm thrilled to be unveiling our latest exclusive miniseries. For our Rest Is History Club members. We will be plunging into the history of photography and in particular, what photography tells us about history. I'm joined by my friend, the great portrait photographer, Chris Floyd, who is going to be talking us through some particular historical moments. So we'll be looking at revolutions, the Arab Spring, the Prague Spring, the revolution in Romania in 1989. We'll be talking about music, so the blues, David Bowie and so on. We'll be looking at fashion and the role that photography has played in the transformation of fashion. And finally, we'll be talking about technology, how technology has changed photography and how photography has in turn affected the way that we see history. So this is a brilliant series, It's a lot of fun. We would love as many people as possible to join up and to see this series with me and Chris talking about some of the most iconic images in recent history. And in this first episode, we are looking at revolutions. And here is a lovely little clip.

[B]

Iran. Right, we're back to Iran again. Yeah, so 1979. So what I've really tried to do with these is give you, if you. If you're interested in this subject, who is the photographer that best defines that, that subject?

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I've picked one, one photographer for each of the four revolutions that we're. Yeah, we're going to cover here. So Iran 79, that the person you really want to look at is a man called, where he was known by a singular name, Abbas. Right, his full name was Abbas Attar, but he's known professionally as Abbas. He's born in 1944. I mean, really, his life's work really was documenting the effect of religion on people.

[A]

Yeah, Isn't that interesting? So. So he's Iranian himself, Right. He was born in Iran, but he left Iran and then he was. He grew up in Algeria and then he returned to Iran during the.

[B]

I mean, as an adult, he lived most of his life in Paris and after he documented the sort of 79, 80 Iranian revolution, he really. He was exiled, really. He didn't go back to Iran until, I think 1997 was the last time he went back. But 79, 80, he really was. He seemed to be everywhere. I mean, we've got five examples, five pictures of his hair, but he seemed to be everywhere and covering everything, which, you know, for a huge country, like geographic, you know, physically huge country like Iran is quite something.

[A]

So this is the ayatollah.

[B]

He's second from right.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And he is Khomeini. He's calling upon Ayatollah Shariat Madari to appease tensions between their respective followers. That is as much as I know about this bit. You know, I'm really picking pictures that really convey the tension and drama of it.

[A]

So this is. Khomeini has been back for just under a year. And actually, I suppose the fact that you're telling that story is a reminder that actually for the first. Well, actually for years, for about the first two or three years, the revolution. The revolution is in complete flux. Nobody knows necessarily, the Khomeini is going to win and what role he's going to play in the new regime. And there are other power brokers, I guess, other ayatollahs.

[B]

I mean, it's similar in a way to the Russian Revolution, isn't it, in that all those factions after 1917 and did not settle down.

[A]

It's obvious to us now, looking back that we impose a pattern on it, that we think, okay, these guys are obviously always going to win, win. But nobody knows this at the time. And there are different Islamic groups, there are different groups of mujahideen kind of fighting for the streets and whatnot. And how does. I mean, the fact that Abbas is in the room.

[B]

Yeah, that's the astonishing thing, that he's in the room, because he's in the room here. And then at some point, I mean, that's six months later that he's out in the desert with this, you know, when the US Tried to rescue the hostages, which we'll come to in a minute. But he, He's. He's all over the place. You know, he's. He's obviously really well, well connected and fed with information. You know, how he got into that room, I don't. I have no idea.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But the fact that they. They let him in and they also, you know, he was able to photograph. Not only photograph this, but also he got out and he got. He got the film out. You know, this is so much of this. These revolution pictures are about people who have to smuggle film.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Out. Not only out of a room, but out of a country.

[A]

Yeah. You know, but in his case, it surely makes a massive difference that he's Iranian, that he's born in Iran and he's a Muslim.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So he's. He has, you know, two cards to play with the regime, I guess, that a Western photographer would not have.

[B]

Yeah. But he, obviously, he didn't he didn't endear himself to, to the Khomeini regime after that because you know, by he. He was exiled and went off to live in Paris for.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

For 17 years.

[A]

So should we look at some of the other photos that he took? So we did Operation, the operation in the desert. Operation Eagle Claw. Eagle Claw. Colonel Charlie Beckwith and his attempt to rescue the hostages with Delta Force. Obviously disaster for the Americans and disaster for Jimmy Carter's presidency. And actually I hadn't seen this until you showed it to me. It's not terribly well known. So he went out to the desert and it really is in the middle of nowhere. You look at it on Google Maps and took a photograph of the wreckage of the, of the helicopter. I guess it's an image of humiliation for the United States.

[B]

Yeah, it is, isn't it? For the Americans it's absolutely about the humiliation. I mean it just best laid plans and all. So.

[A]

And just as an image, it's the image of the crashed wreckage against the, the emptiness I guess of the desert and the huge wide horizon.

[B]

But I wonder if they came because there's not a lot of the, the actual body of the helicopter there. Do you think they would have come? They, they came back and destroyed. Because the Americans have always got technology that's better than everybody else's.

[A]

Oh no, they didn't go back.

[B]

They didn't go back, right?

[A]

No, they didn't go back. They just, I mean that's the amazing thing. They abandoned the stuff. But also in the helicopter.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Were the plans of the mission.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And the Iranians get the kind of charred fragments of paper and exhibit them to the world.

[B]

I didn't know that. That bit I didn't know.

[A]

Yeah. I mean it could not have been a greater catastrophe. And then you've got another image from the US Embassy, haven't you where the postages are being. Are being kept.

[B]

Yeah. This is mob in front of the embassy. Researching this and looking at a lot of revolution pictures. One of the themes that comes up again and again and again is mobs.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And after a while of looking at this I realized that one mob is kind of pretty much the same as any other mob.

[A]

Ye, the thing about the mob that becomes the image certainly for the Americans of the Iranian revolution. I think the reason that the Iranian revolution had such an impact on US domestic opinion was the otherness of it. So it's memory beards. We've got the forbidding looking priests and sort of clerics in the photo with the. Ayatollahs and then this picture. It's the sort of frenzy of it that I think for people, if you're sitting in Wisconsin watching on TV or something or opening a newspaper, that's what people found unsettling because they didn't apprec. That the. I guess, the strength of feeling, the fervor against the Shah, but also the religious dimension Abbas was specialized in.

[B]

But how did the Ayatollah. How is it possible for him to enable this kind of. To channel this rage? Because one of the things you read a lot about is how, you know, Iranians are Persians, they're not Arabs.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How was he able to kind of take this, Find this sort of Islamic fervor within a country that's Persian and not.

[A]

Oh, well, I think their particular brand of Islam, so Shia, the fact that they're embattled and they're surrounded by Sunnis is obviously very important to explaining Iranian mentality. And it's. It's where I think religion and nationalism kind of fuse. Yeah. These protests, these enormous street demonstrations have been going while he was in exile. So they'd been building and building every 40 days in 1978 with the funerals of the last people who'd been shot. Then there would be another 40 days later, huge crowds on the streets. The Shah's secret police would shoot some more people. And that meant that 40 days later there would be another set of funerals and another of these enormous sort of outpourings of rage. And I think some of the energy to me comes from the contrast between these people who are so fired up and are so. There's such passion and such a sort of loss of control in a way. And then that is being focused through somebody who is the incarnation of austerity and control. You know, the Ayatollah, when Khomeini returns at the beginning of 1979. And he says famously on the plane to Peter Jennings, as he's coming in, Peter Jennings says, what do you feel? What are your feelings? And he says, I feel nothing. And there's something about the sort of. The coldness, the self control. Then in a weird way. Well, it makes him kind of otherworldly. It makes him seem holy. And I think that almost the fact that he's not giving into the same passions that they are, it makes him an even greater focus for excitement. People do view him as a kind of holy man and as. And as the. The emblem of a kind of unchanging, authentic Iran that the Shah had betrayed. I guess the Shah was too Western and the Shah was corrupt and all of these kinds of things. And so people projected all of this onto the sort of what appeared to be the kind of blank slate of Khomeini Ye. And then he was, you know, I think it's underappreciated how pragmatic, how calculating, how cold blooded he was in kind of using that, tapping it, eliminating his rivals and building his power.

[B]

Because the other thing you also get from this, I sense, is that it takes actually quite a small, in a population, it takes quite a small percentage of people if they are, if they are fervent enough and motivated enough. You know, it's like if you look at politics in Western Europe now, it's really a very small number of people that are passionate enough to really want to join a political party these days.

[A]

Yeah, of course.

[B]

And it's that thing, if you have a small number of people who are committed and willing to go all the way, you can, you can do a lot. Of course you can do a lot.

[A]

The crowds are enormous though. Yeah, I mean the crowds are vast. I mean we're talking about millions of people sometimes on the streets. I mean it really is. I think he taps something. It's not just about a small group of extremists. I think he taps something a sense that, you know, the country had changed so much in the previous 10 years. Things spiraling out of control and people yearned for a kind of reassurance, traditional, they saw as traditional values, sense of solidarity, all of those kinds of things. They felt that he and his sort of faction offered. What about the last photo that you've got of Abbas?

[B]

This is armed mullahs marching past Ayatollah's house.

[A]

What I like about this, there are lots of photos taken in the Iranian revolution. I mean, photograph were always drawn to the women in their kind of black cloaks and their hadoors. I mean so much of the sort of the imagery of that was really unsettling to Westerners because they saw it as part of the oppression of women. Understandably. But it's interesting how prominent women are often are in these photos, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah. Abbas has a lot of great pictures of Iranian women, you know, all dressed more often than not like that. There's a very, there's a great picture he took of them doing target practices.

[A]

Yeah. With the guns.

[B]

Yeah. I think what's unsettling about it is the display of austerity. Austerity, isn't it? I mean everything about that picture represents a form of austerity doesn't it?

[A]

Nobody's smiling, everybody's grim faced.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Can I ask one more question about the Bass and his photographs? The Iranian revolution, how important is it, do you think that they are black and white? It's the black and white images that seem to linger in the mind.

[B]

Well, you have, I mean. Yeah. Because, because they are. It's essentially they're monotonal scenes, aren't they? You know, there's people in black.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And white and there's very little color there. You know, if you look at the color one, I mean there's almost. There's no actual color. I mean there's a tiny flash of blue somewhere here. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Everyone's in black.

[B]

I mean that's it. Everyone else is in black.

[A]

Can I just ask you a quick question before we move on to the next revolution? So the tension between black and white and color in photography, by and large, why is it that a photographer now would choose black and white? Because so many of the photographs that we're going to be looking at are black and white and they're taken in an age when color was possible.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So why do photographers. What is, what's that choice?

[B]

There's a combination of practical things. One which was you could process and print, print black and white, film much more easily.

[A]

Right.

[B]

In a hotel room bathroom.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Build a dark room in a hotel room bathroom and process and print. Color is much, much, much more difficult to do. And then also, you know, you have things like newspapers of the time, you know, apart from your. Things like Time magazine and Life magazine. You know, most newspapers then print didn't really print color.

[A]

I mean today, 1986, Eddie Shah was

[B]

the first, first British newspaper in color. You know, so until then there was actually no need for it. You know, if you're dealing with, if you're supplying hard news, which is fundamentally what a lot of this is. Yeah, there's, there's no mark, there's no market for it.

[A]

Okay. One, one other question which has never occurred to me before until you were just talking. So somebody like Abbas who goes to Iran to do these photos, or indeed the people who go to Vietnam or whatever, they're never doing this really with a book in mind. Particularly they're thinking about short term clients, as in, I will sell these to the Time magazine or the Washington Post or whoever, that's the plan. And if the book does come of that, that's an accident, that comes later. But the point is that the sort of, the short term transactions, I think

[B]

some of these People were probably much more focused on documenting things because they felt that they needed to be documented. They were driven by. Not necessarily driven by the daily.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Grind of, of supplying an image to the paper. I think Abbas is someone who is. Was drawn to religious projects his whole life where he was drawn to religious projects. I mean, he did projects on Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, he did a seven year project on militant Islam after. On. On. Sorry. On jihadism.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

After 9, 11. He spent seven years documenting in 16 countries.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So it becomes a sort of passion project as much as anything and almost probably quite addictive that you seek out another conflict or you seek out because

[B]

there's always to do, isn't there?

[A]

Thank you for listening or watching. If you were indeed watching. Now, if you want to see the rest of that episode and the other episodes that are coming in this tremendous series in the next three weeks, then all you need to do is to head to thereestishory.com and sign up to join the club. And not only will you get this terrific series with me and Chris Floyd, you will get a host of unbelievable benefits. Now, Chris and I will be back next week to talk about photography and music. So make sure you come back for that and don't miss out. And on that bombshell, bye. Bye.