Authoritarianism

Tuesday

Daniel DePetris

Don’t expect the protests to topple Iran’s government

The Islamic Republic of Iran is reeling. Its 43-year-old patriarchal system of bearded clerics is witnessing its biggest nationwide demonstrations in years. Iranians of all classes, regions, and professions are pouring into the streets. All this in the heart of the world’s only theocracy, where voicing any discontent can land you a bloody face and a hefty prison sentence. The protests, which will enter their second full week on Friday, were sparked by a particularly gruesome crime by the Iranian authorities against a young woman named Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the morality police in Tehran for supposedly dressing immodestly.

Thursday

Alexander Larman

Ken Burns’s angry new film

There is probably no American documentary filmmaker more respected than Ken Burns. From his landmark 1990 series about the Civil War to his most recent work that has explored everyone and everything from Ernest Hemingway to country music, Burns has established himself as a fearless chronicler of stories that illuminate the nation’s history, sometimes in ways that viewers might find uncomfortable. His 2005 documentary about the African-American boxing champion Jack Johnson, Unforgiveable Blackness, was a fine example of the filmmaker turning his gaze on a subject that many might have preferred be left obscure, and it won him an Emmy for Outstanding Directing as a result — one of fifteen that he and his films have won to date.