EGYPT: John R. Bradley's Acclaimed 'Arab Spring' Book Out in Arabic

Pre-eminent British Middle East commentator and bestselling author John R. Bradley's latest book, "After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), will be published this month in Arabic by the Cairo-based Kalimat Arabia publishing house.

Kalimat Arabia also published the Arabic translation of John R. Bradley's previous book, "Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) which uniquely predicted, with stunning accuracy, the Jan. 25 Tahrir Square uprising against the Mubarak regime.

"Inside Egypt" is the most famous book on Egypt written by a foreigner in living memory, and caused an international media firestorm when it was banned by the Mubarak regime on initial publication. It has been a bestseller throughout the Arab world since the Arabic translation was published in 2011, and the English-language edition has so far sold more than 25,000 copies. It was chosen by Fareed Zakaria as a Book of the Week on his GPS show that airs on CNN.

"After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts" is likewise the most widely reviewed, highly praised and bestselling of the many books published on the Arab Spring in Britain during the past year. It has proven equally prophetic regarding its prediction of the sudden and dramatic triumph of political Islam in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring.

"After the Arab Spring is indispensable to understanding why the Middle East uprisings aren't going where we want," wrote New York Times bestselling author Robert Baer, the former CIA operative and inspiration for the Hollywood blockbuster movie Syriania. "Bradley has a better pulse on the reality than anyone."

Bradley was one of the few journalists "who sang out of tune to the chorus of Arab Spring enthusiasts," added Tomás Alcoverro, Spain's best-known Middle East corresspondent, in La Vanguardia. "The Islamists were poised to mobolize for the elections. They have indeed hijacked the revolutions," he concluded.

Noting that Bradley "has spent years in the region," The National said the author brings to "After the Arab Spring" a "copious amount of first-hand knowledge" and "enlivens his otherwise downbeat and enervating argument with a potent dose of caustic wit." Bradley, the review concluded, "does well to force readers to confront the dark side of the Arab Spring."

The London Telegraph meanwhile hailed "After the Arab Spring" as "concise and elegantly written," and "an impassioned critique of the Western media's narrative of the Middle East." Max Hastings, in the lead book review for The London Sunday Times, said he shared Bradley's "skepticism and dismay as regards Western cultural and political naivety about the region."

John R. Bradley is fluent in Egyptian Arabic and is a regular contributor to The Daily Mail, The Spectator and The Jewish Chronicle. He has been covering the Middle East for almost two decades and has written for dozens of other publications, including The Economist, The Washington Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times, The New York Post, and The Independent.

His other books include "Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), a Foreign Affairs bestseller, and "Behind the Veil of Vice: The Business and Culture of Sex in the Middle East" (Palgrave Macmillan: 2010), descibed by Publishers Weeky as "an essential corrective to the fantasies and misinformation about Middle Eastern cultures."

John R. Bradley's public lectures have most recently taken place at The Pacific Council for International Affairs in Los Angeles, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, London's Intelligence Squared, and The Athenaeum in Claremont, California.

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