The Second Arab Awakening: Revolution, Democracy, and the Islamist Challenge from Tunis to Damascus

An eye-opening survey of the recent Arab revolutions and their political consequences, comparing them to those of a previous generation. When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, in December 2010, sparking a wave of popular uprisings that would topple dictatorial regimes across North Africa and the Middle East, observers hailed the onset of a great “Arab Awakening.”

But this wasn’t the first time people in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere across the region had taken to...