Book review: how capitalism failed the Arab world: the economic roots and precarious future of the middle east uprisings by Richard Javad Heydarian

In How Capitalism Failed the Arab World, Richard Heydarian aims to show how years of economic mismanagement, political autocracy, and corruption have encouraged people to revolt, and how the initial optimism of the uprisings is now giving way to bitter power struggles, increasing uncertainty and continued economic stagnation. Although conciseness in academic writing is to be applauded, this book may have benefited greatly from being longer, finds Elaine Housby. It packs a huge amount into fewer than two hundred pages, and its arguments are sometimes so compressed that they are hard to follow. However, both academics and general readers with an interest in the Arab Spring and its continuing development will find it very useful.