A review by jasonfurman
A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS by Robert F. Worth

5.0

An excellent journalistic account of the Arab Spring and its aftermath. It begins with the heady days of Tahrir Square in Egypt and also covers the events in Libya, Syria, Yemen and finally end on a more positive note with Tunisia. The first part of the book is "Revolts" and the second is "Restorations" and it provides a little bit of history, a decent amount of current events, and a lot of journalistic narrative around several people caught up in events--for example, teenage sunni and alawi girls whose friendship dissolves as the civil war develops, foreign fighters who join and then escape ISIS, villagers in Yemen seeking fairness, a more moderate cleric in Egypt, and many more. The book really humanizes events in a tragic and brutal manner, although ultimately ending with the comparatively successful reconciliation in Tunisia.