With the unfolding of the momentous revolutionary events in Tahrir Square, there was a great need to obtain an accessible yet authoritative work to explain the tortuous political journey and the woeful Socio Economic state of the contemporary Egyptian Society that led to the toppling of one of the most stable regimes in the Middle East.This book offers a comprehensive and balanced account which one would warmly recommend as it is far more insightful than the recently published light journalistic essays as J Bradley's " Inside Egypt" or J West's " Karama" which rely on impressions garnered during travels or short stays.
The cheaper revised edition is the one to obtain as it contains a more up to date concluding chapter which takes into account the post Revolution developments and provides a judicious analysis of the potential interaction scenarios between the different agents and stakeholders i.e.the Military, the Muslim Brothers , the secular forces and the Salafists.The author carefully assesses the future of Egypt as a regional player and the long term effects of the creation of a conservative Islamic state on its relationship with the US and Israel.
My only reservation is the indiscriminate use of the term" liberal" scattered in the text to describe widely diverse and antagonistic political positions.For instance the epithet liberal is attached to all secular political groupings as opposed to the conservative Islamists.Not only a large number of the so called liberals are hankering after an authoritarian regime but recent history shows that Secular Modernisers are not necessarily liberal or democratic even when they adopt the tenets of Neo-Liberal Capitalism.The influential capitalist elite after all provided the backbone support to the opportunist Cronyism of the now defunct regime.Later in the text some of the so called liberal Islamists are praised for accepting the democratic game while they still assert the essential inequality of women and Christians.
Nevertheless this work should prove a milestone in the political literature after the Arab Spring for its incisive analysis and cogent arguments.Certainly a compelling enlightening read.
