The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East

by Juan R.I. Cole

The New Arabs( How the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle East) Hardcover JuanCole Simon&Schuster

Genres: Middle East, History, Nonfiction, Politics, Egypt, Islam, Cultural

368 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 2014

About the author

John Ricardo I. "Juan" Cole (born October 23, 1952) is an American scholar and historian of the modern Middle East, Islam and South Asia. He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs and US politics, he has appeared in print and on radio and television, and testified before the United States Senate. He has published many books on the modern Middle East and has translated Kahlil Gibran and Omar Khayyam. Since 2002, he has written a weblog, Informed Comment (juancole.com).

Reviews

[Antigone · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off, the title is misleading. Juan Cole's The New Arabs has less to do with human beings than it does the contribution made by social media to the uprisings of the Arab Spring. It is true that a younger generation of Arabs took advantage of the technology, but only because youth is, as a rule, more open to employing new tools. These are not "new" Arabs, or even a different type of Arab - at least in the study Mr. Cole is submitting. What the author presents here are simply people adopting a fresh innovation to assist in their efforts toward political action and regime change.

Cole's focus is directed, in specific, at the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. He marks several alterations in regional life - among them increased urbanization, unionization, literacy - and the manner in which these developments began to erode tribal exclusivity. Enter Facebook, You Tube, blogging, a sharp spike in the prevalence of cell phones, and we find social interaction shifting into high gear and heading for the fast lane. In a culture very much designed to keep its more dangerous passions under wraps (women, secular leanings, forbidden indulgence, political discontent), the advent of a means of discourse that jumped those boundaries, that was piped right into the home without so much as a knock on the front door, held the potential for a pretty powerful, if not downright insurrectionary, impact.

In regard to rebelling against what Cole refers to as the "republican monarchies" of Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gaddafi, these social platforms provided not only connection and conversation but confrontational possibilities never encountered before. Witness could now be borne of torture and abusive practice through videos that quickly went viral. Information could now be acquired from sources beyond government-controlled news outlets. Counter-narratives suddenly abounded; truth could be mined from the rock, and ideological debate run fluid. While not the match that ignited the mass protests of the Arab Spring, a case could certainly be made for social media's primacy in keeping that fire lit.

And Juan Cole attempts to make that case. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it very well. There are serious problems here with content and structure. The narrative thread completely disappears inside lists of names, organizations, locations, and other assorted arid ephemera that seem to be included merely to prove due diligence. (The thirty-three pages of sourcework tacked on to the end were surely enough proof of that.) Sections on the Egyptian revolt are mired in the tedious reconstructions of every variable underpinning a dynamic he completely fails to bring to life. (Honestly, I fell asleep twice.) Each chapter comes with a summation that is little more than a restatement of what one's just read - and is either a composition quirk or shameless page-padding. The section on Libya was actually quite good, though you'll have to wade through two-thirds of the book before you reach it.

On the whole? Great topic. Just really poor execution.

[Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you read this, you're going to learn everything you could want to know about the mindset of the youth involved in the government uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. You're going to learn how democracy might just eventually take hold. And you're going to read a lot of facts. Plenty of facts. And quite a bit of data to support those facts.

Everything's tied together nicely, but it's hard to get over the fact that this story's sort of already been told. In fact, much of the story was told on Twitter live as it happened. And it's still searchable by hashtags. #arabspring #facts #figures

This read like a PhD dissertation and was honesty a bit of a slog.

I think it could've been better if perhaps the story was told through one or two central characters instead of a hodgepodge of actors and bit players.

Thanks to Goodreads and Simon & Schuster for the reading copy.

[Fred Kohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alhamdullilah! I am finally finished with this very important, very informative, and very difficult book. "Finally", not because it was too long or anything like that, but because I needed to put it down every few pages to refocus my glazing over eyes and attention. The "problem" is that we in the U.S.(well, at least me) imagine that we know what is going on in this part of the world, when in fact we know next to nothing. I began this book hardly recognizing any of the individuals or political organizations mentioned, and ended with a far better understanding of who they are and the roles they play.

I do have a bone or two to pick with the author. The subtitle of this book led me to believe that it would have something to do with the Middle East. Instead, the Middle East was basically ignored and the focus was on Egypt and Tunisia. There was an extensive chapter on Libya, but many important countries such as Algeria, Syria, Yemen, and Iran were mentioned only in passing in the conclusion! I was also not thrilled with the organization. The chapter on Libya was very nice because one could follow the trends chronologically from beginning to end. But Egypt and Tunisia, the main foci of the book, were not treated that way. Instead the author jumped back and forth between them, which was confusing, to say the least.

[Argum · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won a copy of this book from Goodreads FirstReads program.

This book was a little dry and a little too detailed. The organizing scheme mostly included multiple countries in each chapter trying to hit a thematic note. The revolutions were very horizontal so many many people were involved. The mixing of countries and the level of detail combined to make it hard to follow at times. Many interviewees were listed by a name along with describing participants making for just too many people to keep track off. At times Juan Cole could have done a bit more editing of the story to make it more readable for a popular audience.

If you are already well versed in the events, I think this is an interesting treatment drawing the disparate events into a cohesive story. If not, I think it is a bit too deep for a casual reader.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cole's take on the Arab Spring revolutions of Libya, Tunisia and Egypt was refreshing for me because it offered the perspective of the activists who were actually behind the uprisings. I felt I was able to understand more fully the motivations and sentiments of these youth movements than from my previous exposure by Western news media sources. It was nice to get out of the U.S.-centric mindset. The book is a bit dense, more scholarly than narrative, and at times I found it very hard to really focus, getting overwhelmed by the relentless stream of reporting. I definitely feel way more informed about the Arab Spring than before reading this book, so in that Cole succeeded. For a more detailed review, check out http://www.iwantmichikosjob.com/?p=110.

[The Tick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the title, the book focused a lot more on what actually happned during the Arab Spring than on, well, how the youth is actually transforming it. I wish there had been more social and cultural analysis rather than recent history.

[Albert Meier · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book the author provides the history of the uprisings and revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and analyse of role youth and youth culture played in these events. I feel he did an solid job. The state of these nations prior to the revolutions were stated in clear terms, the events were unfolded with clarity and sufficient detail and the analyse showed real tends, patterns and differences between these three countries. While he is focused on youth movements, he doesn't shy away from acknowledging their limitations and the role other groups and segments of society played. While detailed and thorough, I did not find it a slog to read.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An examination of the Arab Spring as it occurred in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, three countries that overthrew their governments during that period with very different outcomes. Cole had a lot more information about what happened in Tunisia and Egypt than in Libya, but it still made for an interesting comparison. The big limitation of the book is that all three stories aren't necessarily over yet--something that Cole himself acknowledges. In fact, despite the unambiguously negative (IMHO) outcomes in Egypt and Libya, Cole is optimistic that the current generation of young Arab activists who overturned the dictatorships in those three countries are not done yet. I don't share his optimism, but I guess only time will tell.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I generally enjoyed this book (I read it for my political science class). However, it has so much information that it was very overwhelming, and I think the book could have been better with a reorganization. I couldn't keep the facts and stories I had learned straight, though I think having read it as part of a class actually made it easier. In the end, I'm glad that Cole is advocating for the importance of youth and his optimism towards the Middle East.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The young Arabs of the Millennial Generation are more into technological innovations than their ancestors and are using it to make major changes in the Middle East. This work is an examination of that social movement.

[Amid عميد · Rating 2 out of 5]

dnf.
This book failed to capture my interest sufficiently for me to see it through to the end. It delves into the impact of the Internet on the youth in the Arab world and examines its role in the Arab Spring. However, it didn't engage me as I had hoped.

[Mills College Library]

909.09749 C6895 2014

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrific piece of reporting and analysis.

[Roxanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a long read. To put it shortly it says the new young Arabs are demanding democracy and no more dictators. They want bread, liberty, and social justice.