Arab Spring Then and Now

Book excerpt: Three award-winning journalists dive into the 2010 uprising that engulfed North Africa and the Middle East—and its aftermath. “The big problem with the Middle East is to get people to see it from a different perspective; to stop accepting the American version of reality, i.e. ‘terror terror terror,’ and instead look at the question of injustice. Seeing a different perspective, that of people who suffer for example.”—Robert Fisk, The Independent In December 2010, the “Tunisian Revolution” touched off a wave of protests, riots, revolutions and civil wars throughout the Middle East. Initially the world hoped for positive change—democracy, free elections, and human rights. But, by 2012 the Arab Spring had morphed into “Arab Winter” bringing death, destruction, and despair. The Independent’s Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn, and Kim Sengupta, among the most acclaimed Middle East correspondents of our generation, examine the events of this regional tsunami that threatens to have an impact on our world for years to come.