Samuli Schielke

Engaging mix of the personal and the theoretical to understand how Egyptians viewed their situation leading up to the revolution of January 2011 and beyond. Schielke folds in in-depth accounts of his informants (who were uniformly strikingly articulate about their lives and thoughts) with background historical details.

The account woven is subtle and complex. Readers who prefer strong dichotomies and few ambiguities will be disappointed. But the author's intent is not to construct a polemic but to describe real lives as actually lived. And that, of course, is fluid across boundaries and categories, and it is all brilliantly captured.

This is not the place to go for a blow-by-blow description of the revolution, but the reader gets enough of the facts to understand the situation. Very well done.… (mehr)