
Show Notes
What does a revolution look like from the inside? What does it cost? What does it demand from the rest of the world? The world is watching Iran. This episode is part of a miniseries we're dedicating to understanding what's actually happening there, and the struggle for freedom of a people caught between a barbaric regime on one side and missile strikes on the other. Spend time with the people who know this fight best: Who’ve fought brutal regimes in the halls of the Hague, or been held in the notorious Evin prison. Who have lived through revolutions, and shared their story with the world. How to Change the World presents Iran: Inside the Revolution. Our guest today is Adnan Hadad, and he knows revolution not as some abstract concept, but as a lived reality. He left a stable career behind to join the Syrian revolution in the midst of a brutal conflict. Adnan co-founded the Aleppo Media Center, producing The White Helmets - the Academy Award-winning documentary that shared the power of humanity even in the midst of war to global audiences. Together, we dig into the blueprint of dictatorships, the insights Syria’s revolution holds for the Iranian opposition, and the underlying challenges to make regime change and secular democracy possible. This conversation was recorded at the end of March 2026 - in the midst of war. While the situation on the ground continues to shift rapidly, the journey of Iran to reclaim itself from tyranny continues. ----- The How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX. Producer and Composer: Alexandre Miller Editors: Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy Session Engineers: Amirnezam Samadabadi and Gabe Sweeney
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Friends, this was a fun one. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say, I didn't know who John Green was until relatively recently. We met on a Zoom call where I first learned about the fan-owned English Football Club, AFC Wimbledon. Now we’re working together on a film about the power of community ownership through the lens of sports, which feels particularly relevant as more and more soccer teams get snatched up by some of the worst humans on earth. You probably know John from his smash-hit novel and its film adaptation, The Fault in Our Stars, or from Vlogbrothers, the YouTube series he's run with his brother Hank for nearly two decades, or maybe from Crash Course, their series shown in classrooms across America. He's as prolific as he is thoughtful. And, he has a phenomenal new book out called Hollywood, Ending. We talk about his book Everything Is Tuberculosis - and how a disease we've been able to cure for over 80 years, is still the world’s most deadly infection. We also talk about a hope that stands up to scrutiny, why history doesn’t belong to the past, and how we’re both the cause and the cure to most of the things that plague us.
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