Burnett, U.S.A.

44 Days — Iran and the Remaking of the World

Historical upheavals are rarely covered in their entirety by a single photographer, and certainly not with the diversity of situations and players managed by David Burnett. In his photographs of the Iranian Revolution we find the Shah and his army, Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers, and the people — the men, women and students, the fabric of society — who were the engine, actors, victims and onlookers of the tidal wave whose development no one predicted and whose consequences no one foresaw.

Truly, the world has never been the same since.

In many ways the revolution in Iran, now thirty years old, had a classic, nearly Shakespearian trajectory: the last days of the Shah, the interregnum, and the first days of Khomeini. Whereas many photographers were in Iran for one of these parts, Burnett, the rare American, was there for them all. These are the 44 days of the title which, while making reference to the 444-day hostage crisis that began in November 1979, represent the turn of the screw: the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic Republic.

The photographs here — a significant representation, if only a fraction of Burnett’s total archive —were not chosen solely on aesthetic grounds, nor are they intended to be viewed as art. Rather they are remarkable historical documents, the contents of a time capsule from another era. And if his photographs of the revolution bear more than a passing resemblance to recent images of upheaval emerging from Iran, this fact should be considered in its full Hegelian weight. For truly the resolution of the Islamic/Western schism, which afflicts the world as never before, depends upon it.

Robert Pledge and Jacques Menasche
Contact Press Images
44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World
Edited by Robert Pledge & Jacques Menasche
Preface by Christiane Amanpour
Introduction by John Kifner
Published by Focal Point-National Geographic
(www.contactpressimages.com)