What do you think?
Rate this book
Loved Egyptian Night: The Meaning of the Arab Spring
Why did the Arab Spring have such calamitous outcomes?
Loved Egyptian Night fundamentally reassesses the Arab Spring, refuting the stories the Western powers fed to the world. There is no doubt that the toppling of Ben Ali in Tunisia in January 2011 and what it led to amounted to a political revolution.
But the uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Syria - countries with quite different histories and political traditions - were never revolutions. As Hugh Roberts explains, the bitter ends of these episodes were inscribed in their misunderstood beginnings. To celebrate these uprisings as 'revolutions' preempts and inhibits critical analysis and expresses an abdication of intellectual responsibility.
After so much wishful thinking, what remains is the debris of a cynical pretension. Outside interference, ostensibly on behalf of these 'revolutions', reduced Libya to anarchy and condemned Syria to a devastating proxy war now in its twelfth year.
In Egypt, the Free Officers' state was re-booted in its most brutal ever form. The Americans and Europeans did not vainly try to help the Egyptians or anyone else escape from authoritarian rule. Instead, they contrived to seal them up in it. The long oppression of these societies, Kipling’s 'loved Egyptian night,' is not going to be ended by the Western powers; these days it is guaranteed by them.
Loved Egyptian Night fundamentally reassesses the Arab Spring, refuting the stories the Western powers fed to the world. There is no doubt that the toppling of Ben Ali in Tunisia in January 2011 and what it led to amounted to a political revolution.
But the uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Syria - countries with quite different histories and political traditions - were never revolutions. As Hugh Roberts explains, the bitter ends of these episodes were inscribed in their misunderstood beginnings. To celebrate these uprisings as 'revolutions' preempts and inhibits critical analysis and expresses an abdication of intellectual responsibility.
After so much wishful thinking, what remains is the debris of a cynical pretension. Outside interference, ostensibly on behalf of these 'revolutions', reduced Libya to anarchy and condemned Syria to a devastating proxy war now in its twelfth year.
In Egypt, the Free Officers' state was re-booted in its most brutal ever form. The Americans and Europeans did not vainly try to help the Egyptians or anyone else escape from authoritarian rule. Instead, they contrived to seal them up in it. The long oppression of these societies, Kipling’s 'loved Egyptian night,' is not going to be ended by the Western powers; these days it is guaranteed by them.
344 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 27, 2024
2 people are currently reading
468 people want to read
About the author
Hugh Roberts
36 books6 followersHugh Roberts is the Edward Keller Professor of North African and Middle Eastern history at Tufts University. His most recent books are The Battlefield: Algeria 1988-2002 and Berber Government: The Kabyle Polity in Pre-Colonial Algeria.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 6, 2024
An enlightening and very thought provoking analysis from a different perspective of the Arab Spring "revolutions" and how they evolved and were triggered. Particularly interesting analysis of Egypt, Libya and Syria, where the actions of the Western powers, particularly in the Libyan example, laid bare their shameless self interest and hollow appeals to international law. Particularly glaring given the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
November 22, 2025
Alright so, I picked up Loved Egyptian Night kinda out of curiosity, because everyone talks about the Arab Spring like it was one big “revolution” and honestly, I never felt like the stories added up. This book hit me harder than I expected. Hugh Roberts basically pulls the curtain back and goes, “yeah, that’s not what y’all think it was,” and he actually backs it up in a way that feels uncomfortably real.
What I liked most is how he breaks down each country instead of pretending they all had the same experience. Egypt, Libya, Syria... he explains it in a way where you’re like wow, this was messy from the beginning and the ending wasn’t some big surprise twist. The part about Western countries kinda propping up the whole situation instead of helping? Yeah, that stayed in my head for a while.
It’s not the kind of book you skim while half asleep. You kinda slow down, reread a few lines, sit with it. But if you actually care about what went down before everything turned chaotic, this book gives you that grounded, uncomfortable truth nobody really says out loud.
What I liked most is how he breaks down each country instead of pretending they all had the same experience. Egypt, Libya, Syria... he explains it in a way where you’re like wow, this was messy from the beginning and the ending wasn’t some big surprise twist. The part about Western countries kinda propping up the whole situation instead of helping? Yeah, that stayed in my head for a while.
It’s not the kind of book you skim while half asleep. You kinda slow down, reread a few lines, sit with it. But if you actually care about what went down before everything turned chaotic, this book gives you that grounded, uncomfortable truth nobody really says out loud.
September 16, 2024
È il mio primo libro sul soggetto molto interessante sarebbe stato bello avere dei libri suggeriti dal autore riguardo al tema
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews