PositiveThe New York TimesPeople versus power: This is how most of us remember Egypt’s 2011-13 upheavals. Crowds fight the police under clouds of tear gas on a Nile bridge, bringing down the dictator Hosni Mubarak. Later, they rise to challenge his replacement, the Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi, but are ultimately betrayed and crushed by a revived military regime ... David D. Kirkpatrick’s engrossing account of his time as the New York Times Cairo bureau chief covering the Egyptian revolution...he brings two new contributions to his retelling. One is The Times’s extraordinary access to decision makers. Kirkpatrick gives an unmatched blow-by-blow of the Obama administration’s Egypt diplomacy, with the Americans’ mixed signals undercutting its impact. Of greater general interest in understanding the final outcome are Kirkpatrick’s extensive interviews with Egyptian officials and with Morsi’s aides. Kirkpatrick’s other key contribution is his willingness to plunge into the messy, sprawling street violence, and show how each side could perceive itself a victim and step up its own provocative tactics in response ... Into the Hands of the Soldiers is a journalist’s eye view, but not a comprehensive history.
Laura Secor
MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewSecor’s opposition’s-eye journalistic treatment makes for an engaging account of the reform movement in Iran: its ideals, its luminaries, its points of reference. But she might have made a greater attempt to tie the stories together as a way of assessing what the reform movement actually accomplished. The personal stories of Iranian reformists’ journeys are compelling. But readers must look elsewhere to judge whether their ideas really did make a difference.
