From Deep State to Islamic State: The Arab Counter-Revolution and its Jihadi Legacy - Brossura

Filiu, Jean-Pierre

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1849045461 ISBN 13: 9781849045469

Casa editrice: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2015

Riassunto

In his disturbing and timely book Jean-Pierre Filiu lays bare the strategies and tactics employed by the Middle Eastern autocracies, above all those of Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Algeria, that set out to crush the democratic uprisings of the 'Arab Revolution'. In pursuit of these goals they turned to the intelligence agencies and internal security arms of the 'deep state', the armed forces and to street gangs such as the Shabiha to enforce their will. Alongside physical intimidation, imprisonment and murder, Arab counter- revolutionaries discredited and split their opponents by boosting Salafi - Jihadi groups such as Islamic State. They also released from prison hardline Islamists and secretly armed and funded them. The full potential of the Arab counter-revolution surprised most observers, who thought they had seen it all from the Arab despots: their perversity, their brutality, their voracity. But the wider world underestimated their ferocious readiness to literally burn down their countries in order to cling to absolute power.Bashar al-Assad clambered to the top of this murderous class of tyrants, driving nearly half of the Syrian population in to exile and executing tens of thousands of his opponents. He has set a grisly precedent, one that other Arab autocrats are sure to follow in their pursuit of absolute power.

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Recensione

'It takes patience, clarity and perspective to explain the whole grim picture [in the Middle East] and the links between its constituent parts. These qualities are on impressive display in an important new book by the French scholar Jean-Pierre Filiu. His particular skill is to describe the development, survival and resurgence of the Arab 'deep state,' the security agencies that have kept it going and the monster they helped create in its most extreme form the jihadis of the Islamic state (Isis).' --The Guardian

'Among authors trying to make sense of why the uprisings of 2011 largely failed, Jean-Pierre Filiu stands out. His new book ... combines passion, scholarship, and insight to present a convincing explanation of the deep malaise afflicting the Arab world.' --The Economist

'Filiu's book should make us think harder about the economics of power . . . as a diagnosis his book is written with scholarship, passion, and clarity.' --New York Review of Books

'Filiu has produced a refreshingly nuanced analysis of the region s totalitarian regimes, distinguishing between those of his Modern Mamluks (in Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Algeria) and other styles of suppressive dictatorships (in Iraq, Libya, Tunisia and the Gulf States).' --The Times Literary Supplement

'In [this] polemical book ... Filiu offers the radical view that the Mamluks were crude usurpers of the original national revolution, which they hijacked at independence; he insists that this was the case in Algeria before broadening the charge to apply it to Egypt, Syria and Yemen.' --London Review of Books

L'autore

Jean-Pierre Filiu is Professor of Middle East Studies at Sciences Po in Paris, and has held visiting professorships at both Columbia University and Georgetown University. His book The Apocalypse in Islam was awarded the main prize by the French History Association. His books and articles on the Arab world have been published in a dozen languages. His most recent book, Gaza: A History, is also available from Hurst.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1849045461
• ISBN 13: 9781849045469
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 224
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile