The New Arabs

Renowned blogger and Middle East expert Juan Cole takes us "inside the youth movements in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, showing us how activists used technology and social media to amplify their message and connect with like-minded citizens" ("The New York Times") in this "rousing study of the Arab Spring" ("Publishers Weekly, " starred review).
For three decades, Cole has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. In "The New Arabs" he has written "an elegant, carefully delineated synthesis of the complicated, intertwined facets of the Arab uprisings," ("Kirkus Reviews"), illuminating the role of today's Arab youth--who they are, what they want, and how they will affect world politics.
Not all big groups of teenagers and twenty-somethings necessarily produce historical movements centered on their identity as youth, with a generational set of organizations, symbols, and demands rooted at least partially in the distinctive problems of people their age. The Arab Millennials did. And, in a provocative, big-picture argument about the future of the Arab world, "The New Arabs" shows just how they did it. "Engaging, powerful, and comprehensive...The book feels as indispensable to scholars as it is insightful for a more casual reader" ("Los Angeles Times").

Juan Cole received his doctorate in Islamic Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1984. Since then, he has taught history at the University of Michigan. His monographs have treated the Shiite clergy in South Asia, anti-colonial revolution in Egypt, millenarianism in modern Iran, transnational Shiite thought and movements, Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt, and the US engagement with the Muslim world. After September 11, he emerged as a public intellectual, with frequent appearances on television and radio and popular columns at Salon and Truthdig. His weblog, Informed Comment, receives a wide readership from those interested in the Western relationship to the Muslim world.