The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East

Renowned blogger and Middle East expert Juan Cole takes us “inside the youth movements in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, showing us how activists used technology and social media to amplify their message and connect with like-minded citizens” (The New York Times) in this “rousing study of the Arab Spring” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

For three decades, Cole has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. In The New Arabs he has written “an elegant, carefully delineated synthesis of the complicated, intertwined facets of the Arab uprisings,” (Kirkus Reviews), illuminating the role of today’s Arab youth—who they are, what they want, and how they will affect world politics.

Not all big groups of teenagers and twenty-somethings necessarily produce historical movements centered on their identity as youth, with a generational set of organizations, symbols, and demands rooted at least partially in the distinctive problems of people their age. The Arab Millennials did. And, in a provocative, big-picture argument about the future of the Arab world, The New Arabs shows just how they did it. “Engaging, powerful, and comprehensive…The book feels as indispensable to scholars as it is insightful for a more casual reader” (Los Angeles Times).

Juan Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Engaging the Muslim World and Napoleon’s Egypt. He has been a regular guest on PBS NewsHour and has also appeared on ABC World News, Nightline, the Today show, Charlie Rose, Anderson Cooper 360, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Colbert Report, Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera America, and many others. He has commented extensively on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Iraq, the politics of Pakistan and Afghanistan, Syria, and Iranian domestic struggles and foreign affairs. He has a regular column on TruthDig.com. Visit JuanCole.com.