We Are Your Soldiers: How Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World

by Alex Rowell Narrated by Nigel Patterson

Overview

Gamal Abdel Nasser, the larger-than-life Egyptian president who ruled for eighteen years between the coup d'état he led in 1952 and his death in 1970, is best known for wresting the Suez Canal from the British and French empires and befriending such iconic revolutionaries as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Yet there is a darker side to Nasser's regime. He was a brutal authoritarian, whose legacy, Alex Rowell argues, lies at the heart of the violent and repressive order that still prevails throughout the Arab world today.



We Are Your Soldiers examines seven countries-Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, and Libya-weaving the epic tale of Nasser's dramatic encounters with each to reassess his impact in the Arab sphere. These engagements were often drenched in blood and destruction, leaving deep scars that endure to the present. Rowell shows how the Nasser years were crucial to the formation of regimes as varied as Bashar al-Assad's Syria, Muammar al-Gaddafi's Libya, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi's Egypt.



Drawing on a deep reading of Arabic sources, extensive interviews, and material never before published in English, Rowell offers a necessary reexamination of Nasser's rule and a new understanding of the politics of the Middle East.

Editorial Reviews

Simon Sebag Montefiore

"A brilliant book long overdue.... Reads like a thriller yet brings to life the [very] complex politics of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen. Never more relevant."

Eugene Rogan

"A gripping account of Egypt’s 1952 Revolution and Gamal Abdel Nasser’s legacy on the Arab world as a whole. Alex Rowell captures the horrors of the Nasserist police state that took root across the Middle East in the twentieth century. Essential reading to understand the roots of the 2011 Arab Spring and the conflicts that have devastated so much of the region down to the present. A brilliant book."

Ben Hubbard (Editors' Choice)

"Rowell’s writing is at its best when he narrates the stories of lesser-known figures, allowing the cultural and political textures of these countries to shine through."

Ziad Majed

"In this richly documented book, Alex Rowell offers a fascinating account of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise in Egypt and his decades-long influence on politics, policies, and political culture in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, and Libya. Intense and thrilling, We Are Your Soldiers is a journey through tumultuous moments and events that shaped the contemporary history of the Arab world."

Middle East Monitor - Usman Butt

"Offers an important and critical glimpse into the complex world of Nasser and Nasserism.... A fascinating and, at times, depressing but absolutely necessary read and would make for interesting discussion on the development of Arab politics."

The Economist - Gareth Browne

"The man who ruled Egypt for a quarter of a century provides many lessons for understanding the Middle East today…. A vivid reminder of the oppressive and bloody nature of these governments."

Colin Freeman

"In 400 blood-soaked pages, [Rowell] traces Nasser’s toxic influence from one Arab capital to another, from plots in officers’ club rooms via palace coups and well-equipped torture chambers. Rowell is an eloquent writer, weaving the intrigue into the region’s wider history."

Hassan Hassan

"Gamal Abdel Nasser is the most consequential Arab leader of the twentieth century, and with every major event in the region it becomes necessary to revisit his legacy. Alex Rowell has produced an essential piece of work on Nasser’s legacy in light of the historic Arab uprisings and the advent of social media that have laid bare many of our sacred cultural icons. We Are Your Soldiers is a scholarly book written with journalistic flair, a beautiful narrative, and compelling research."

Wall Street Journal - Tunku Varadarajan

"Richly detailed."

Thanassis Cambanis

"Alex Rowell takes us on a rollicking and revelatory tour of today’s Middle East, casting new light with a masterful reassessment of history. He peers beneath the familiar tumult of revolt and repression, and finds Gamal Abdel Nasser, a titanic and charismatic figure whose hand seems, from beyond the grave, to still steer events across the Arab world. This is a necessary corrective, focused not on the West’s geopolitical obsessions but on Nasser’s immense and enduring impact on the Arab world."

New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) - Ben Hubbard

"Rowell’s writing is at its best when he narrates the stories of lesser-known figures, allowing the cultural and political textures of these countries to shine through."

5 stars The Telegraph (London)

In 400 blood-soaked pages, [Rowell] traces Nasser’s toxic influence from one Arab capital to another, from plots in officers’ club rooms via palace coups and well-equipped torture chambers. Rowell is an eloquent writer, weaving the intrigue into the region’s wider history."

Kirkus Reviews

2023-09-23
Comprehensive study of how much of the modern Arab world still reverberates with actions committed by Egypt’s former dictator.

“Seven decades since his coup, and more than half a century since his death, the Arab peoples have scarcely begun to shake off the legacy of ‘Father’ Gamal Abdel Nasser,” writes Lebanon-based journalist Rowell. The now largely suppressed Arab Spring movement, for example, was in many ways a continuation of anti-Nasser resistance, while the Syrian civil war and political chaos in Iraq bear Nasser’s marks in the wake of his failed effort to create an “Arab socialism” that would unite authoritarian rulers in the region. Nasser was a military adventurist who sent Egyptian troops as far afield as the Congo and unleashed chemical warfare on battlefields in Yemen. Ironically, Nasser’s actions helped his enemies rise, including Saudi-inspired Islamists, for Nasser was unsuccessful in playing off the factions of his day such as the Muslim Brotherhood. As Rowell notes, in matters of religion and its Muslim fundamentalist practitioners, “Nasser’s own stance was far more protean and mercurial than the one-dimensional ‘secular’ label permits.” The author shows that Egypt was much the weaker after Nasser’s rule, in part by his alienating the U.S. while courting a failing Soviet Union; in part because of the brain drain that accompanied his regime; and in part because of the disastrous 1967 war, which destroyed Egypt’s air force and led Israel to occupy Gaza and the West Bank. Nasser came to rue his errors, though, and “he made unequivocally clear to his fellow Arab heads of state that neither he nor they were in any position to wage war on Israel in the near future,” a confession “amounting to an indictment of much of pre-1967 Nasserism as a whole.”

A welcome history that helps explain the formation of the Middle East over the last half-century.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159347428
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	11/14/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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