Azmi Bishara, Egypt: Revolution, Failed Transition and Counter-Revolution. London: I. B. Tauris (hb £90 – 978 0 7556 4590 9). 2022, 731 pp.

Abstract

This impressively detailed work of scholarship represents a rich resource for anyone looking to understand the political dynamics of the revolution and counterrevolution in Egypt. Bishara draws on a wide array of sources, including interviews and focus groups with protagonists as well as news reports, books and reports in English and Arabic. The text is clearly and directly written, engaging thoroughly with the academic literature around democratic transitions without drowning in jargon or descending into scholasticism. Evidently any short review of a work of 700 pages is going to miss out on a great deal, so I will concentrate here on the crux of Bishara’s argument and its political implications. His core concern is to assess what went wrong in the ‘failed transition’ and draw up a balance sheet of the role of key protagonists. The act of revolutionary drama that culminated in the removal of Mubarak by his own generals on 11 February 2011 had a dual nature, Bishara argues: