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Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen: Egypt's Road to Revolt
One of the most momentous events in the Arab uprisings that swept across the Middle East in 2011 was the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. As dramatic and sudden as this seemed, it was only one further episode in an ongoing power struggle between the three components of Egypt’s authoritarian regime: the military, the security services, and the government. A detailed study of the interactions within this invidious triangle over six decades of war, conspiracy, and sociopolitical transformation, Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen is the first systematic analysis of recent Egyptian history.
This paperback edition, updated to incorporate events in 2013, provides the background necessary to understanding how the military rebranded itself as the defender of democracy and ousted Mubarak’s successor, Muhammad Morsi. Impeccably researched and filled with intrigue, Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen is an indispensable guide for anyone trying to fathom what this latest development means for Egypt’s future.
Reviews
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“This is a fascinating book that should be required reading for anybody interested in Egypt’s past and what happens next. It gives a unique insight into what the military and security forces were thinking and doing, and why they were not the monolithic force that most had imagined.”
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“Hazem Kandil’s important book … effectively rewrites the inner history of the Free Officers’ state and his book deserves to spark sustained debate. It provides an exceptionally detailed account of the endless power struggle… and offers startling new accounts of the major crises.”
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“An indispensable read for anyone seeking clarity on the ongoing struggle between the military, security and political apparatuses of Egypt’s autocracy.”
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“Meticulous documentation, engaging style and skilful weaving of complex phenomena into a coherent narrative.”
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“At last comes a book which links the coups and revolutions witnessed by father and son. The Cambridge sociologist Hazem Kandil has produced a compelling history of Egypt’s 60-year power struggle. It is a tale of ruinous incompetence and staggering venality which consumes the country to this day. Unlike the modern-era pharaohs responsible, this book takes no prisoners. Beginning with Nasser, this is a withering denunciation of Egypt’s myth-makers and their phoney myths.”
Blog
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Crisis and Conflict in the Middle East: A Reading List
This week, Iraqi and Kurdish forces began to advance on Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which since 2014 has been in the hands of Islamic State. How will this latest major development reshape the terrain of Islamic militancy?
In the Independent yesterday, Patrick Cockburn responded to this advancement in Mosul, a city "ravaged by 13 years of war" and now facing "a frightening and uncertain future".
His new book — The Age of Jihad: Islamic State and the Great War for the Middle East — charts the turmoil of today’s Middle East and the devastating role the West has played in the region from 2001 to the present.
As events continue to unfold, we present a reading list of key titles, including Cockburn’s critically-acclaimed The Age of Jihad, which — through investigative journalism, graphic storytelling, and critical analysis – shed light on what’s at stake for in the Middle East.
Children play in water from a burst pipe in the rubble of Aleppo/Reuters -
The Arab Uprisings Five Years On: A Reading List
Five years ago the Middle East and North Africa was electrified by unprecedented popular protests that heralded the start of the Arab Spring. Beginning in Tunisia popular movements swept regimes from power in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya and threatened to overthrow ruling elites across the region. Tragically, the Arab Spring has since become mired in counterrevolution and civil war with the extraordinary violence of the war in Syria, the rise of ISIS, the escalating refugee crisis, and the establishment of a new dictatorship in Egypt emblematic of the profound challenges facing the people of the region. As tumultuous events continue to unfold we present Verso's reading list of key titles addressing the developing situation in the Middle East.
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"A present defaults – unless the crowd declares itself": Alain Badiou on Ukraine, Egypt and finitude
I will say once again that I think that the fundamental figure of contemporary oppression is finitude. The strategic axis of this seminar is to provide the means for a critique of the contemporary world by identifying something within its propaganda, activity etc. at whose centre is the imposition of finitude, that is to say, the exclusion of the infinite from humanity’s possible set of horizons. At each session, from now up until the end of the year, I want to give you an example of the way in which something taking place today, or some commonplace or constantly used category, can be represented as a figure or operation of reduction to finitude. As such, each of these things can be encapsulated in terms of the general oppressive vision of finitude.Today I would like to take the example of Ukraine, the way in which the historic events in Ukraine serve the propagandist consensus that both constitutes and envelops it (at our next sessions I will address two connected notions, which are similarly hegemonic and bask in consensus: the notions of the republic and of secularism – and what I call false invariants: what is assumed to be an invariant, a commonplace of thought, and even a proof of what it is that unites us).