The Arab Uprisings

This compact, fact-filled overview provides a regional framework and country-by-country analysis of the widespread reform movements and antigovernment uprisings that swept through the Arab world in 2011. Gelvin (Middle Eastern history, Univ. of California, Los Angeles) explains the specific historic and social context in each country in a regional context, emphasizing the weak political structures, endemic unemployment and corruption, and lag in political participation. He clearly outlines the wide range of events, looking at the eruptions in Tunisia and Egypt, the differences in the politically and socially weak states of Libya and Yemen, the tensions in the "nontraditional monarchies" throughout the region, and the complexity of grassroots opposition and governmental repression in Syria. He makes it clear that al-Qaeda neither stimulated nor benefited from the uprisings, and that the United States has little leverage in influencing internal developments. While he provides a lucid explanation of recent upheavals, he cautions that neither predicting the course of uprisings nor anticipating their evolution is possible.