After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked The Middle East Revolts: Amazon.co.uk: John R. Bradley: Books

Review

Praise for Inside Egypt:

'Terrifically well told and extremely sobering.' - Kirkus

'In this highly readable and thoughtful volume, Bradley provides a devastating critique of Egypt's current dictatorial government.' Library Journal

'Inside Egypt is an original, angry, brilliant, subtle, and highly readable expose of contemporary Egyptian politics and society.' - Peter Bergen, author of Holy War Inc. and The Osama bin Laden I Know

'Egypt is the next domino to fall and, as they say, so goes Egypt so goes the Middle East. John R. Bradley hits the nail on the head, explaining why a pillar of American dominance in that part of the world is about to crumble.' - Robert Baer, former Middle East-based CIA operative, author of See No Evil and Sleeping with the Devil

Praise for Saudi Arabia Exposed:

'A highly informed, temperate, and understanding account of a country . . . that is an enigma.' - The New York Times

'A thoughtful, incisive portrait of a fractured nation . . . [a] remarkable volume.' - Newsweek

'Offers insight into Saudi life seldom reported in the West.' - New York Post

'Contribute[s] significantly to the debate . . . Bradley had a unique vantage. Buy this book.' - Los Angeles Times Book Review

Praise for Behind the Veil of Vice:

'Drawing on extensive research as well as the author's own substantial firsthand knowledge of the region, the book offers an essential corrective to the fantasies and misinformation about Middle Eastern cultures.' - Publishers Weekly

--Publishers Weekly

An impassioned polemic, scornful about western naivety towards the events of last year. --The Sunday Times

'A savage indictment of alleged western naivety about the significance of the Middle East revolutions. [Bradley] highlights Tunisia as the most conspicuous case of a society where Islamist dominance is likely to ensure that its last state will prove worse than its first, and is equally gloomy in forecasts for Egypt and Libya. It will be some time before we discover whether Mr Bradley's prognosis is accurate, but it has a nasty plausibility.' --Max Hastings, Financial Times

Review

'Yes, the demonstrators were brave - but religious extremists were manipulating them. John R. Bradley looks beyond the blazing power of [the revolutions] to find Islamist groups steadily taking control.' Time Out

This wry, concise and elegantly written book amounts to an impassioned critique of the Western media's narrative of the Middle East.' The Daily Telegraph

'An impassioned polemic, scornful about western naivety towards the events of last year.' The Sunday Times

'I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Arab spring, or anyone with a view on intervention in the region. It questions every assumption the media has portrayed, and provides evidence for these statements.' The Student Review

'After the Arab Spring is indispensable to understanding why the Middle East uprisings aren't going where we want. John R. Bradley has a better pulse on the reality than anyone.' Robert Baer, former CIA operative and inspiration for the movie SYRIANA

'A savage indictment of alleged western naivety about the significance of the Middle East revolutions. [Bradley] highlights Tunisia as the most conspicuous case of a society where Islamist dominance is likely to ensure that its last state will prove worse than its first, and is equally gloomy in forecasts for Egypt and Libya. It will be some time before we discover whether Mr Bradley's prognosis is accurate, but it has a nasty plausibility.' Max Hastings, Financial Times

'Having boldly predicted the revolution in Egypt in his book Inside Egypt and warned of the 'saving graces' of Tunisia's Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali dictatorship before the advent of the Jasmine Revolution in Behind the Veil of Vice, the author sends out another cry of alarm—this time at the democratic fallout that is benefiting the strident Islamist parties…. Bradley looks at the resurgence of Saudi-sponsored Wahhabism and other forms of tribalism since the revolutions in Yemen, Libya and elsewhere. He also considers the 'Shia Axis' and bitter lessons gained from Islamist incursions in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.' Kirkus Reviews

'(Bradley) has spent years in the region, and brings to After the Arab Spring a copious amount of first-hand knowledge. He also enlivens his otherwise downbeat and enervating argument with a potent dose of caustic wit.... He does well to force readers - many of whom may be unrealistically sanguine about recent events - to confront the dark side of the Arab Spring.' The National

'Bradley speaks Egyptian Arabic, knows the region well, and writes in a robust and punchy style... (He) gets the essential narrative of political Islamism.' Literary Review

'Bradley's book is a good alternative view of the Arab Spring, and his pessimistic outlook is useful to avoid looking at events from so-called rose-colored glasses.' Small Wars Journal

'Bradley is able to push through the blustery talking heads of, say, CNN or Al-Jazeera to allow the voice of the people themselves to be heard. He rightly undermines much of the gushy view that the region is fired by dreams of Western liberalism and democracy and counters that it is really all about feeding oneself and one's family. Bradley's book stimulates a part of the mind largely unworked by... other books.' The Australian

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Orwell of the Arab Spring 22 April 2012

By Tom Doyle

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a brilliant polemical book that convincingly explains that the Arab Spring of revolutions is unlikely to bring democracy of the western kind and far more likely to result in respression under Islamist regimes.

Bradley, who has lived and travelled for years in the countries he describes and has a passion for the region, pulls no punches and tells it how it is. Libya, he believes, will end up like Iraq. The freedoms and liberal leanings of Tunisia will disppear as fundamentalists fill the political vacuum of Ben Ali. The banning of booze at tourist resorts and bikinis on the beach will just be the tip of the iceberg in Egypt, where liberties taken for granted for decades will, he believes, disappear.

The West, Bradley says, has fallen for the concept of the Arab Spring, conveniently avoiding the realities, while all along being concerned about the bottom line: the steady supply of affordable oil. His view is that Obama is no better than previous American leaders, and remains attached to the Kissinger policy of realpolitik. This is particularly true in regards to America turning a blind eye to human rights offences in Saudi Arabia, a country that Bradley rates as being second only to North Korea in terms of such abuses.

Read this book: it's full of commonsense, short and disturbing, too.

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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful

The Real Arab Spring 6 Mar 2012

By RAJ

Format:Hardcover

There are two narratives for the Arab Spring: the Western politico/media reported one and that of the truly informed ("Arabist") commentator. Bradley is one of the very few articulate and intelligent journalists who sets himself firmly in the latter camp. His analysis is informed by his fluency in the language and his years of living and working in the Middle East. The book is packed full of insights from an individual who has deep expertise of actually living the Arab Street, rather than an occasional fly-in visit to report an event, and is quite prepared to forcefully question the mainstream. Thus, his well-argued demolition of the Western view of the Arab Spring as a movement that mirrors the disintegration of the USSR is brilliant. Talking (only in English) to the young educated liberal secularists of Tahrir Square has allowed us to implant our own hopelessly optimistic views on the coming of our secular liberalism to these conservative poor inward-looking societies, most of whose uneducated masses look to the local Iman for explanation and instruction not to a bunch of Western dressed and educated middle class kids. Bradley astutely shows how the Iranian revolution is probably a much better model if you want to understand what is actually happening now rather than anything that occurred in Eastern Europe. The democratically elected "moderate" Muslim leaders who Western political commentators seem now to be welcoming onto the stage, he argues are much closer to the original religious leaders of Tehran. What ever they say in public, their agenda has a logic of its own and they are in for the long haul. Bradley's comments on the failures of the Western Capitalist system in relation to the current world financial crisis are on less firm ground and would probably have been better placed elsewhere. Also, there are one or two factual errors reference the succession of the Prophet, which unfortunately have slipped through the copy editing and, to an opponent, could be used to undermine his case. But this is of minor significance. This is an extremely eloquent, well-argued and compelling assessment of arguably the most significant event in the region since the end of colonial period. An important book and certainly the best so far written on the subject that is a must-read for those politicians, diplomats and policy-makers planning no doubt their next intervention "in support of Human Rights".

Finally the truth!! 24 May 2012

By Joey

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

It is refreshing to finally read the words that are correlated to the pictures that have been coming out of the middle east. It certainly seems that more Iran type countries are being erected and the west just refuses to wake up from its hope and dream of a renaissance in the extended Arabian Peninsula.
Mr. Bradley rightfully identifies the inherent problems of the Muslim and Arab societies and that without uprooting the violent nature of them a free society could never be established.