Tarek Osman

First, this book is written by a political economist. Economists should not write books about anything other than economics. They fail at everything else. Though an economic view can be pretty bleak.

Second, I had to give up on this book. I couldn't make heads or tails of some things. Add in the author actively excludes facts like the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood did use violence and use it frequently while actively campaigning against Mubarak's regime but paints the MB as merely a social works group, I couldn't take the author seriously. The MB were never benign. I'm not sure what reality the author lives in but the one he lives in is vastly different from the one I and the Islamist groups live in.

Oddly, I found the Wikipedia page on "Islamism" to be much better and more useful.… (lisätietoja)

A few interesting tidbits, particularly on Gamal Nasser, a recent historical figure on par with Lincoln or Martin Luther King Jr. in terms of his impact on society, and one not many Americans may be familiar with. I'd pick up another book that focused on Nasser.

At 245 pages (minus footnotes), this should be a sleek and compact coverage of Egypt's recent history. Instead, it felt like an overstuffed "The Economist" article. The author writes about how Cairo and Alexandria now have "suffocating crowdedness, domineering compactness and stifling closeness." (p. 200) So...they're crowded. He goes on for several pages to explain the highly-familiar topics of urban crowding, flight to the suburbs, and ghettos. The author also summarizes the plots to several Egyptian movies, which, while diverting, seemed odd and somewhat off-topic.

The book was published before the recent demonstrations in Egypt that led to Mubarak's fall, so that isn't covered. I just wish I could have gotten a better sense of the underlying currents that led up to that moment. Unfortunately, the relevant information is so buried under academic jargon that I walked away not knowing much more about Egypt than I had before. On the bright side, this made me grateful that I'm no longer forced to read books in the weird world of academia, where obfuscation is a desirable trait.

I'd recommend "The Economist" for those interested in learning more about recent events in Egypt. Also, "Who Hates Whom" by Bob Harris gives a quick historical overview of major world conflicts in a breezy style.… (lisätietoja)