Shedding new light on the sources and character of Iran's 1979 Revolution, Manochehr Dorraj explores the genesis and development of popular movements and dissent in Iranian history. Dorraj draws on Iran's pre-Islamic religious culture and on its legacy of Islamic folk heroes and the millenarian movements, as well as on more recent history, to illuminate current events. His investigation of the peculiarities of Islam, of populism, and of Iranian social development is a major contribution to the ongoing debate regarding the essence of the Iranian revolution and, more generally, the political dynamics underlying social change in the Middle East.