AFRICOM Cultural Awareness Knowledge Center

Investigating the connections between multiculturalism, minorities, citizenship, and democracy in North Africa, this book argues that multiculturalism in this region- and in the Arab world at large - has reached a significant level in terms of scale and importance. In the rest of the world, there has been a trend - albeit a contested one - toward a greater recognition of minority rights. Addressing the lacuna in literature on this issue, this book opens new avenues of thought and research on diversity, linking policy based on cultural difference to democratic culture and to social justice. Multiculturalism and Democracy in North Africa will be of use to students and researchers with an interest in Sociology, Cultural Studies, and Political Science more broadly.

An award-winning journalist tells the inside story of the 2011 Egyptian revolution by following two courageous and pivotal leaders--and their imperfect decisions that changed the world. In January 2011, in Cairo's Tahrir Square, a group of strangers sparked a revolution. Basem, an apolitical middle-class architect, jeopardized the lives of his family when he seized the chance to improve his country. Moaz, a contrarian Muslim Brother, defied his own organization to join the opposition.

A sweeping account of Egypt in the modern era, it incisively chronicles all of the nation's central historicalepisodes: the decline of British rule, the rise of Nasser and his quest to become a pan-Arab leader, Egypt's decision to make peace with Israel and ally with the United States, the assassination of Sadat, the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood, and - finally - the demonstrations that convulsed Tahrir Square and overthrew an entrenched regime.

Egypt is one of the few great empires of antiquity that exists today as a nation state. Despite its extraordinary record of national endurance, the pressures to which Egypt currently is subjected and which are bound to intensify are already straining the ties that hold its political community together, while rendering ever more difficult the task of governing it. In this timely book, leading expert on Egyptian affairs Robert Springborg explains how a country with such a long and impressive history has now arrived at this parlous condition.