Arab Fall

Arab Fall
Author: Eric Trager
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2016
Genre: History
ISBN: 1626163626

How did Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood win power so quickly after the dramatic "Arab Spring" uprising that ended President Hosni Mubarak's thirty-year reign in February 2011? And why did the Brotherhood fall from power even more quickly, culminating with the popular "rebellion" and military coup that toppled Egypt's first elected president, Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, in July 2013? In Arab Fall, Eric Trager examines the Brotherhood's decision making throughout this critical period, explaining its reasons for joining the 2011 uprising, running for a majority of the seats in the 2011-2012 parliamentary elections, and nominating a presidential candidate despite its initial promise not to do so. Based on extensive research in Egypt and interviews with dozens of Brotherhood leaders and cadres including Morsi, Trager argues that the very organizational characteristics that helped the Brotherhood win power also contributed to its rapid downfall. The Brotherhood's intensive process for recruiting members and its rigid nationwide command-chain meant that it possessed unparalleled mobilizing capabilities for winning the first post-Mubarak parliamentary and presidential elections. Yet the Brotherhood's hierarchical organizational culture, in which dissenters are banished and critics are viewed as enemies of Islam, bred exclusivism. This alienated many Egyptians, including many within Egypt's state institutions. The Brotherhood's insularity also prevented its leaders from recognizing how quickly the country was slipping from their grasp, leaving hundreds of thousands of Muslim Brothers entirely unprepared for the brutal crackdown that followed Morsi's overthrow. Trager concludes with an assessment of the current state of Egyptian politics and examines the Brotherhood's prospects for reemerging.

Egypt Two Years After Morsi

Egypt Two Years After Morsi
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa
Publisher:
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2015
Genre: Egypt
ISBN:

Into the Hands of the Soldiers

Into the Hands of the Soldiers
Author: David D. Kirkpatrick
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 483
Release: 2018-08-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1408898470

A poignant, deeply human portrait of Egypt during the Arab Spring, told through the lives of individuals A FINANCIAL TIMES AND AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 'This will be the must read on the destruction of Egypt's revolution and democratic moment' Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch 'Sweeping, passionate ... An essential work of reportage for our time' Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families In 2011, Egyptians of all sects, ages and social classes shook off millennia of autocracy, then elected a Muslim Brother as president. New York Times correspondent David D. Kirkpatrick arrived in Egypt with his family less than six months before the uprising first broke out in 2011. As revolution and violence engulfed the country, he lived through Cairo's hopes and disappointments alongside the diverse population of his new city. Into the Hands of the Soldiers is a heartbreaking story with a simple message: the failings of decades of autocratic rule are the reason for the chaos we see across the Arab world. Understanding the story of what happened in those years can help readers make sense of everything taking place across the region today – from the terrorist attacks in North Sinai to the bedlam in Syria and Libya.

The Buried

The Buried
Author: Peter Hessler
Publisher: Text Publishing
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2019-05-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1925774554

An intimate account of the Arab Spring, and Egypt’s past and present, seen through the eyes of a wide range of Egyptians: political operators, archaeologists and garbage collectors; women, the queer community and migrants.

Democracy is the Answer

Democracy is the Answer
Author: Alaa Al Aswany
Publisher: Gingko Library
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-03-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781909942714

As the Egyptian revolution unfolded throughout 2011 and the ensuing years, no one was better positioned to comment on it—and try to push it in productive directions—than best-selling novelist and political commentator Alaa Al-Aswany. For years a leading critic of the Mubarak regime, Al-Aswany used his weekly newspaper column for Al-Masry Al-Youm to propound the revolution’s ideals and to confront the increasingly troubled politics of its aftermath. This book presents, for the first time in English, all of Al-Aswany’s columns from the period, a comprehensive account of the turmoil of the post-revolutionary years, and a portrait of a country and a people in flux. Each column is presented along with a context-setting introduction, as well as notes and a glossary, all designed to give non-Egyptian readers the background they need to understand the events and figures that Al-Aswany chronicles. The result is a definitive portrait of Egypt today—how it got here, and where it might be headed.

Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism

Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism
Author: Dalia F. Fahmy
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2017-01-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1780748833

The liberatory sentiment that stoked the Arab Spring and saw the ousting of long-time Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak seems a distant memory. Democratically elected president Mohammad Morsi lasted only a year before he was forced from power to be replaced by precisely the kind of authoritarianism protestors had been railing against in January 2011. Paradoxically, this turn of events was encouraged by the same liberal activists and intelligentsia who’d pushed for progressive reform under Mubarak. This volume analyses how such a key contingent of Egyptian liberals came to develop outright illiberal tendencies. Interdisciplinary in scope, it brings together experts in Middle East studies, political science, philosophy, Islamic studies and law to address the failure of Egyptian liberalism in a holistic manner – from liberalism’s relationship with the state, to its role in cultivating civil society, to the role of Islam and secularism in the cultivation of liberalism. A work of impeccable scholarly rigour, Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism reveals the contemporary ramifications of the state of liberalism in Egypt.

Once Upon A Revolution

Once Upon A Revolution
Author: Thanassis Cambanis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2015-01-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1451659016

Award-winning journalist Thanassis Cambanis tells the “wonderfully readable and insightful” (Booklist, starred review) inside story of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Cambanis brings to life the noble dreamers who brought Egypt to the brink of freedom, and the dark powerful forces that—for the time being—stopped them short. But he also tells a universal story of inspirational people willing to transform themselves in order to transform their society. He focuses on two pivotal leaders: One is Basem, an apolitical middle-class architect who puts his entire family in danger when he seizes the chance to improve his country. The other is Moaz, a contrarian Muslim Brother who defies his own organization to join the opposition. These revolutionaries had little more than their idealism with which to battle the secret police, the old oligarchs, and a power-hungry military determined to keep control. Basem wanted to change the system from within and became one of the only revolutionaries to win a seat in parliament. Moaz took a different course, convinced that only street pressure from youth movements could dismantle the old order. Their courageous and imperfect decisions produced an uprising with one enduring outcome: No Arab leader ever again can take the population’s consent for granted. Once Upon a Revolution is “a welcome addition to the literature on Egypt’s uprising” (Library Journal). Featuring exclusive and distinctive reporting, Thanassis Cambanis’s “fluent, intelligent, and highly informed book…convincingly explains what happened in Egypt over the last four years” (The New York Times Book Review).

Counting Islam

Counting Islam
Author: Tarek Masoud
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2014-04-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139991868

Why does Islam seem to dominate Egyptian politics, especially when the country's endemic poverty and deep economic inequality would seem to render it promising terrain for a politics of radical redistribution rather than one of religious conservativism? This book argues that the answer lies not in the political unsophistication of voters, the subordination of economic interests to spiritual ones, or the ineptitude of secular and leftist politicians, but in organizational and social factors that shape the opportunities of parties in authoritarian and democratizing systems to reach potential voters. Tracing the performance of Islamists and their rivals in Egyptian elections over the course of almost forty years, this book not only explains why Islamists win elections, but illuminates the possibilities for the emergence in Egypt of the kind of political pluralism that is at the heart of what we expect from democracy.

Chronicles of the Egyptian Revolution and its Aftermath: 2011–2016

Chronicles of the Egyptian Revolution and its Aftermath: 2011–2016
Author: M. Cherif Bassiouni
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 839
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107133432

This book analyses Egypt's 2011 Revolution, highlighting the struggle for freedom, justice, and human dignity in the face of economic and social problems, and an on-going military regime.

The Battle for Egypt

The Battle for Egypt
Author: Yasmine El Rashidi
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 83
Release: 2011-05-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 159017514X

In a series of riveting dispatches, Cairo native Yasmine El Rashidi provides an eyewitness account of the entire 2011 Egyptian Revolution as it unfolded, from its origins in the days leading up to the first January 25 protest in Tahrir Square through the violent confrontations with the regime and the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, to the subsequent military takeover and the March 2011 constitutional referendum. Drawing on her deep knowledge of the Egyptian capital and its underlying social divisions, El Rashidi brings together a vivid story of the uprising itself with subtle insights about the strengths—and limits—of the protest movement and the prospects for large-scale political change in the September 2011 parliamentary elections. With a preface by the Oxford scholar of revolutions Timothy Garton Ash. The Battle for Egypt is available as an e-book only. There is no print edition of this book.