We Are Your Soldiers: How Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World -- Alex Rowell - Hardcover

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. Crushing democracy at home while launching wars and slaying opponents abroad, Nasser ushered in the long political winter from which the region is still yet to emerge.

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.

Author: Alex Rowell
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 11/14/2023
Pages: 416
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 1.40d
ISBN: 9781324021667

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 10/15/2023
Publishers Weekly 10/30/2023