After the Arab Spring: How the Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolt

From the author of the book that uniquely predicted the Egyptian revolution, a new message about the Middle East: everything we're told about the Arab Spring is wrong.

When popular revolutions erupted in Tunisia and Egypt, the West assumed that democracy and pluralism would triumph. Greatly praised author and foreign correspondent John R. Bradley draws on his extensive firsthand knowledge of the region's cultures and societies to show how Islamists will fill the power vacuum in the wake of the revolutions.

This vivid and timely book gives an original analysis of the new Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Bahrain by highlighting the dramatic spread of Saudi-funded Wahhabi ideology, inter-tribal rivalries, and Sunni-Shia divisions. Bradley gives a boots on the ground look at how the revolutions were first ignited and the major players behind them, and shows how the local population participated in and responded to the uprisings. In Tunisia he witnesses secularists under violent attack and in Egypt observes radical Islamists taking control of the streets. He illuminates the ancient sectarian strife shaking Bahrain, fierce civil war pitching tribe against tribe in Libya and Yemen, and ethnic divisions threatening to tear apart Syria and Iran. Taking it one step further, Bradley offers a comprehensive look at how across countries, liberal, progressive voices that first rallied the Arab masses were drowned out by the slogans of the better-organized and more popular radical Islamists. With the in-depth knowledge of a local and the keen perspective of a seasoned reporter, After the Arab Spring offers a piercing analysis of what the empowerment of Islamism bodes for the future of the Middle East and the impact on the West.

Book Author

John-r-bradley John R. Bradley was born in England in 1970. He was educated at University College London, Dartmouth College in the United States, and Exeter College, Oxford. Fluent in Arabic, he is the author of four books on the region that draw heavily on his personal experience: Saudi Arabia Exposed (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), a Foreign Affairs bestseller; the critically acclaimed Inside Egypt (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; updated 2012), which uniquely and accurately predicted the Jan. 25 Cairo uprising; Behind the Veil of Vice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); and After the Arab Spring (Palgrave Macmillan, 20...
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Book Reviews

  • Robert Baer, former Middle-East based CIA operative.
    "After the Arab Spring is indispensable to understanding why the Middle East uprisings aren’t going where we want. John R. Bradley has a better pulse on the reality than anyone."
  • Kirkus
    "  Bradley looks at the resurgence of Saudi-sponsored Wahhabism and other forms of tribalism since the revolutions in Yemen, Libya and elsewhere. He also considers the “Shia Axis” and bitter lessons gained from Islamist incursions in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, and he chides both the revolutionaries and the Western pragmatists for not learning from history."
  • Max Hastings, Financial Times
    "A savage indictment of alleged western naivety about the significance of this year’s Middle East revolutions. [Bradley] highlights Tunisia as the most conspicuous case of a society where Islamist dominance is likely to ensure that its last state will prove worse than its first, and is equally gloomy in forecasts for Egypt and Libya. It will be some time before we discover whether Mr Bradley’s prognosis is accurate, but it has a nasty plausibility."
  • The Daily Telegraph
    "This wry, concise and elegantly written book amounts to an impassioned critique of the Western media’s narrative of the Middle East."
  • Time Out
    "  Yes, the demonstrators were brave -- but religious extremists were manipulating them. John R. Bradley... looks beyond the blazing power of [the revolutions] to find Islamist groups steadily taking control."
  • The Sunday Times
    "An impassioned polemic, scornful about western naivety."
  • The Student Review
    "I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Arab spring, or anyone with a view on intervention in the region; it questions every assumption the media has portrayed and provides evidence for these statements. "
  • FDL Book Salon
    "Greatly praised author and foreign correspondent John R. Bradley draws on his extensive firsthand knowledge of the region’s cultures and societies to show how Islamists will fill the power vacuum in the wake of the revolutions. This vivid and timely book gives an original analysis of the new Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Bahrain by highlighting the dramatic spread of Saudi-funded Wahhabi ideology, inter-tribal rivalries, and Sunni-Shia divisions...."
  • The National
    "While countless analysts and observers gushed that an era of democracy was at hand, John Bradley sat down to write a book that defies almost every assumption underlying the conventional wisdom about the Arab Spring... (Bradley) has spent years in the region, and brings to After the Arab Spring a copious amount of first-hand knowledge. He also enlivens his otherwise downbeat and enervating argument with a potent dose of caustic wit.... He does well to force readers - many of whom may be unrealistically sanguine about recent events - to confront the dark side of the Arab Spring."
  • Michael Burleigh, Literary Review
    "Bradley speaks Egyptian Arabic, knows the region well, and writes in a robust and punchy style."