Reviews

"Joel Gordon's new book will likely become the standard work on the early years of military rule in Egypt....[A] carefully researched and original view of the period."--American Historical Review
"An important contribution."--Digest of Middle East Studies
"May become the standard account of the period....A welcome and needed corrective to previous studies of a tumultuous period."--CHOICE
"Perceptive and extremely well-researched."--Times Literary Supplement
"Gordon provides us with a fascinating account of the Egyptian revolution. The author has written a copiously documented book and makes sound use of newly classified American and Bristish archives on the period."--Central Asian Survey
"Well-researched and dispassionate....It is good to be reminded through Gordon's detailed study of this period, how provisional, extempore and contingent the works of politics and history are."--Times Higher Education Supplement
"Masterly....Relying on recently opened archives, interviews, and a flood of Egyptian memoirs, he makes sense of those tumultous months...With literary grace and fine historical sensitivity, he explains how the decay of liberalism made Egypt ripe for drastic reform, and how Nassar filled the aching need for a 'just tyrant.'"--Orbis
"Gordon has contributed an intelligent and elegant book, fascinating in the tale it tells and impressive in the breadth of coverage of all the available sources."--International Journal of Middle East Studies
"Elegantly written."--Middle East Journal