This was the first book I picked up on the Arab Spring and it turned out to be a good choice. The author, Jean-Pierre Filiu, had a jump start on most of the other titles coming out of the Arab Spring so his analysis covers only through late Spring, 2011.
Filiu writes in full alliance with the innocent public. He follows their stirrings towards revolt and revolution detailing numerous events throughout the middle east in the last few years. In some chapters, the author takes the time to recount a decades-old historical connection to the outburst of voices in recent events. Filiu reads the revolution as a cooperation between (intentional or not) the media, social networking, non-government organizations and masses of youth just beginning to overcome their fear.
The enemy was politics, internal and external. Filiu describes foreign powers as occupiers, and wholesale enablers of oppression. It is the same viewpoint that describes governments' reactions to Islamism as the problem and never Islamism itself. Having said that, Filiu describes the more extremist factions of Islam and their evolving political parties as being caught of guard. The 'revolution within the revolution' described how quickly Islamic parties had to evolve their platforms, and in some cases start from scratch, in appealing to the new liberalized standard (pg. 105).
Filiu's revolutionary alliance is supported through dozens of notes in the book. It's impossible to describe the force of the revolution without involving the internet army. For those who followed the revolution online, you'll be comforted to see how Filiu neatly compiles the events himself for you, using daily newspapers, online magazines, facebook pages, live camera feed information and pivot sites proven instrumental in crumbling the regimes in Tunisia and Egypt (which is where most of the book is focused). I can't imagine how any other author can write about the Arab Spring without referencing specific internet players as Filiu does.
Is this recounting informative? Yes. It is detailed and approaches the elements within the revolutions from ten specific 'lessons learned'. But what it can't do, and I don't think Filiu claims it will do, is give any insight on the future of the middle east. Revolutions are a sticky business. Their alliances break apart as soon as the regime is toppled and internal politics quickly becomes the next challenge. No one can specifically predict a revolution and in the same token, no one can reasonably suggest the perfect foreign policy in its aftermath. I think Filiu may be a little too glossy-eyed towards his protagonist, but then again it's hard not to be.