The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising

By Gilbert Achcar

‘The people want’ – thus began the slogans chanted by millions of protesters in 2011 in what was dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’.  While the protests revealed a long-suppressed craving for democracy, they also laid bare a deep structural crisis.

In this landmark work, Middle East analyst Gilbert Achcar examines the socio-economic roots and political dynamics of the regional upheaval. He assesses the peculiarities of the region’s states and regimes, and sheds light on the movements that use Islam as a political banner.

Achcar argues that the Arab Spring was but the beginning of a long-term revolutionary process – a perspective confirmed by a second wave of uprisings in 2019 – and outlines the requirements for a solution to the crisis. This new edition features a preface drawing a balance sheet of the upheaval’s first decade.

‘A detailed and searching account of the Arab Spring’-- Malise Ruthven, New York Review of Books

‘The most careful, insightful, and erudite study to date of the Arab uprising.’ --Kevin Anderson (University of California, Santa Barbara), Marx and Philosophy Review of Books

‘A detailed and searching account of the Arab Spring’--‘Achcar’s precise and illuminating analyses contrast with the usual discourses on the Arab Spring.’-- Henry Laurens (Collège de France), L’Orient Littéraire

‘A thoughtful and acute analysis … Jargon-free, clear, and a model of marrying theory to empirical material.’-- Laleh Khalili (Queen Mary, University of London), Middle East in London

‘[This book] extends an invitation to the reader to leave a hall of mirrors that often guides explanations of the uprisings … historical events and conceptual constructs start to take a completely different shape.’-- Maha Abdelrahman (University of Cambridge), Jadaliyya

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saqi Books
• Release date: Mar 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9780863568329

Gilbert Achcar

Gilbert Achcar teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies.