‘The people want’ – thus began the slogans chanted by millions of protesters in 2011 in what was dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’. ?While the protests revealed a long-suppressed craving for democracy, they also laid bare a deep structural crisis. In this landmark work, Middle East analyst Gilbert Achcar examines the socio-economic roots and political dynamics of the regional upheaval. He assesses the peculiarities of the region’s states and regimes, and sheds light on the movements that use Islam as a political banner. Achcar argues that the Arab Spring was but the beginning of a long-term revolutionary process – a perspective confirmed by a second wave of uprisings in 2019 – and outlines the requirements for a solution to the crisis. This new edition features a preface drawing a balance sheet of the upheaval’s first decade.
About the author
Gilbert Achcar is Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS, University of London. His other works include Perilous Power: The Middle East and US Foreign Policy, co-authored with Noam Chomsky, and the critically-acclaimed The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives.
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