The Journey to Tahrir: Revolution, Protest, and Social Change in Egypt
The toppling of Hosni Mubarak marked the beginning of a revolutionary restructuring of Egypt's political and social order. Jeannie Sowers and Chris Toensing bring together updated essays from Middle East Report—the premier journal covering the region—that offer unrivaled analysis of the major social and political trends that underpinned these tumultuous events.
Starting with the momentous eighteen days of street protest that compelled Mubarak's resignation, the volume moves back in time to plumb the state's strategies of repression and examine the mounting dissent of workers, democracy advocates, anti-war activists, and social and environmental campaigners. Leading analysts of Egypt detail the demographic and economic trends that produced wealth for the few and impoverishment for the many. The collection brings clear-headed, first-hand understanding to bear on a moment of intense hope and uncertainty in the Arab world's most populous nation.
Paperback, 320 pages
ISBN: 9781844678754
June 2012
$29.95 / £19.99 / $37.50CAN
Other Editions
Ebook, 256 pages
ISBN: 9781844679072
June 2012
$14.99
Reviews
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“Middle East Report is the best periodical (in English) on the Middle East—bar none.”
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“No person, specializing or not in Middle Eastern affairs, can afford to ignore Middle East Report.”
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“A great way to review late Mubarak Egypt and the January 2011 uprising.”
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“Whatever the future holds for Egypt, The Journey to Tahrir offers a useful compendium for understanding the roads traveled to this point.”
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“A great special issue of an academic journal.”
Blog
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What to Read on Egypt and the Arab Spring
If 2011 saw a monumental change in the governments of the Middle East, 2012 has demonstrated that revolution takes some time, that conflict is sustained and that some of the same challenges are not consigned to history.
Protests continue in Egypt’s capital Cairo, as over one hundred thousand demonstrators have recently taken to the streets and gathered once again in Tahrir Square in opposition to dictatorial decrees by President Mohammed Morsi. With only one hundred days in power, Morsi’s fledgling tenure as president has resulted in examples of sweeping authority, transferring all executive and legislative powers from the military council to his offices.
Such actions are reminiscent of the power exercised by former President Hosni Mubarak. The on-going distrust of Morsi’s presidency returns the chant of the 2011 revolution: "The people want to bring down the regime".
These are Verso’s key titles on the challenges facing Egypt and the Middle East, where uprising continues from the hopefulness of the Arab Spring to the challenges ahead.
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The Journey to Tahrir reviewed in New Left Project
In New Left Project, David Wearing reviews The Journey to Tahrir: Revolution, Protest, and Social Change in Egypt, focusing on the post-revolution resilience of Egypt's "deep state"—the remnants of Mubarak's former National Democratic Party, the Interior Ministry, state media and a sympathetic judiciary—in light of President Morsy's surprise reshuffling of the military leadership. Wearing recommends The Journey to Tahrir in order to understand Egypt's dismal revolutionary prospects:
The French revolution lasted over ten years because a series of historical processes and contradictions simply took that long to resolve themselves into a new order that was capable of enduring beyond the short term. It is hard to discern any sustainable equilibrium in Egyptian politics at the moment. Not, at least, with any real degree of confidence.
A collection of essays from the Middle East Report, The Journey to Tahrir charts the advent of trade union strikes in the past decade, the acceleration of Mubarak's neoliberal policies, and the flourishing of dissent after the Iraq War.
Read the review in full at New Left Project. -
The Journey to Tahrir reviewed by The Arabist and Foreign Policy
Today marks the official publication of The Journey to Tahrir, a collection of essays and articles edited by Jeannie Sowers and Chris Toensing, and mentions of the book appeared on both The Arabist's blog and in Foreign Policy's Middle East Channel Editor's Reader.
In The Arabist, Issandr El Amrani, a contributor to the book himself, writes that this new collection is, "A great way to review late Mubarak Egypt and the January 2011 uprising."
Visit The Arabist and Foreign Policy to read the reviews in full.
