Circling the Square: Stories from the Egyptian Revolution
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
What happened to the promise of Tahrir Square and the Arab Spring?
On January 25, 2011, the world was watching Cairo. Egyptians of every stripe came together in Tahrir Square to protest Hosni Mubarak's three decades of brutal rule. After many hopeful, turbulent years, however, Egypt seems to be back where it began, with another strongman, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in power. How did this happen?
In Circling the Square, Wendell Steavenson uses literary reportage to describe the intimate ironies and ad hoc movements of the Egyptian revolution—from Mubarak's fall to Mohammed Morsi's. Vignettes, incidents, anecdotes, conversations, musings, observations and character sketches cast a fresh light on this vital Middle Eastern story.
Closely observing a wide range of people from a thug in a slum with a homemade gun to the democracy/documentary makers on Tahrir Square, to fundamentalist imams and military intelligence officers, Steavenson dares to ask: what am I looking at and how can I begin to understand it?
With a novelist's eye for character, Steavenson paints indelible, instantly recognizable portraits and dilemmas that illuminate universal questions. What does democracy mean? What happens when a revolution throws the ideas and values of a society into crisis? What is a revolution, and, finally, what can it accomplish?
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Wendell Steavenson. (2015). Circling the Square: Stories from the Egyptian Revolution. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Wendell Steavenson. 2015. Circling the Square: Stories From the Egyptian Revolution. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Wendell Steavenson, Circling the Square: Stories From the Egyptian Revolution. HarperCollins, 2015.
MLA Citation (style guide)Wendell Steavenson. Circling the Square: Stories From the Egyptian Revolution. HarperCollins, 2015.
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Wendell Steavenson wrote for The New Yorker from Cairo for more than a year during the Egyptian revolution. She has spent most of the past decade and a half reporting from the Middle East and the Caucasus for the Guardian, Prospect magazine, Slate, Granta and other publications. Steavenson has written two previous books, both critically acclaimed: Stories I Stole, about post-Soviet Georgia, and The Weight of a Mustard Seed, about life and morality in Saddam's Iraq and the aftermath of the American invasion. She was also a 2014 Nieman Fellow at Harvard. Steavenson currently lives in Paris.
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What happened to the promise of Tahrir Square and the Arab Spring?
On January 25, 2011, the world was watching Cairo. Egyptians of every stripe came together in Tahrir Square to protest Hosni Mubarak's three decades of brutal rule. After many hopeful, turbulent years, however, Egypt seems to be back where it began, with another strongman, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in power. How did this happen?
In Circling the Square, Wendell Steavenson uses literary reportage to describe the intimate ironies and ad hoc movements of the Egyptian revolution—from Mubarak's fall to Mohammed Morsi's. Vignettes, incidents, anecdotes, conversations, musings, observations and character sketches cast a fresh light on this vital Middle Eastern story.
Closely observing a wide range of people from a thug in a slum with a homemade gun to the democracy/documentary makers on Tahrir Square, to fundamentalist imams and military intelligence officers, Steavenson dares to ask: what am I looking at and how can I begin to understand it?
With a novelist's eye for character, Steavenson paints indelible, instantly recognizable portraits and dilemmas that illuminate universal questions. What does democracy mean? What happens when a revolution throws the ideas and values of a society into crisis? What is a revolution, and, finally, what can it accomplish?
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"Few books are better than this one at conveying the confusion and excitement of those days on the square." — New York Times Book Review
"Steavenson weaves together a mosaic portrait that tightly focuses on the people...of the revolution." — Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[Steavenson] creates a vibrant sense of being on the ground in Cairo..." — Los Angeles Times
"There is much to praise in her evocative, impressionistic sketches of the stirring events in Egypt...Her actual writing is first-rate. She cares deeply about her subjects but her critical acuity and keen sense of humor see through their foibles and contradictions." — Washington Times
"A moving, empathetic portrayal of a central movement of our time: the brave Egyptian people's attempt to end repression without the tools or the leaders to succeed." — Library Journal
"Impassioned coverage from the front lines of a historic Middle Eastern uprising... An intensive firsthand exploration of modern Egyptian liberation and solidarity." — Kirkus
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July 20, 2015
Steavenson (Stories I Stole), the New Yorker's Egypt correspondent from 2011 to 2012, offers vivid, illuminating, if at times superficial impressions of the protests which overthrew Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian regime. Arriving in Cairo just after the "Day of Rage" (January 28) saw the police cede control of the streets, including massive Tahrir Square, Steavenson aimed to understand the various currents feeding, resisting, and transforming Egypt's popular democratic revolution. This account also draws heavily on the experiences of her acquaintances within the diverse opposition movement. The story culminates in the election of Egypt's first democratically elected president, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi, and his downfall a year later in another, even larger uprising that divides the revolution into two competing factionsâboth ultimately and violently superseded by the Egyptian military. Steavenson comes away with more questions than answers, and a rueful appreciation of history's complexity. Readers looking for in-depth political analysis or historical context will be disappointed. Nevertheless, the author's proximity to and resolute identification with the ordinary people and extraordinary spirit of possibility in Tahrir Square in those heady days conveys subtleties that can be missed by more erudite top-down analyses, and they make for a breathless ride into what was then an unfolding drama.
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June 15, 2015
The Arab Spring erupted in Cairo's Tahrir Square where massive demonstrations began in January 2011. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians gathered to oppose the decades old authoritarian regime, hopeful for change, freedom, democracy, and a more just society. Journalist Steavenson (The Weight of a Mustard Seed), who has years of Middle Eastern experience, conveys the excitement, fears, and confusion of the crowds mobilizing for revolution without a plan or a coherent idea of what might come next. The author roams the square and the city, watching and listening, conducting numerous interviews with street youth as well as educated activists. All are exuberant when the aging President Hosni Mubarak is finally forced from office. Two years later, when the constitutionally elected Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi is arrested by the army, the revolution is over, but the hopes and determination of the Egyptian people for a better life may revive. Steavenson brings these scenes to life and conveys the aspirations and frustration of a nation crushed by poverty and powerlessness yet undaunted in its dream of a better society. VERDICT A moving, empathetic portrayal of a central movement of our time: the brave Egyptian people's attempt to end repression without the tools or the leaders to succeed.--Elizabeth Hayford, formerly with Associated Coll. of the Midwest, Evanston, IL
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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What happened to the promise of Tahrir Square and the Arab Spring?
On January 25, 2011, the world was watching Cairo. Egyptians of every stripe came together in Tahrir Square to protest Hosni Mubarak's three decades of brutal rule. After many hopeful, turbulent years, however, Egypt seems to be back where it began, with another strongman, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in power. How did this happen?
In Circling the Square, Wendell Steavenson uses literary reportage to describe the intimate ironies and ad hoc movements of the Egyptian revolution—from Mubarak's fall to Mohammed Morsi's. Vignettes, incidents, anecdotes, conversations, musings, observations and character sketches cast a fresh light on this vital Middle Eastern story.
Closely observing a wide range of people from a thug in a slum with a homemade gun to the democracy/documentary makers on Tahrir Square, to fundamentalist imams and military intelligence officers, Steavenson dares to ask: what...
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