Revolution Squared: Tahrir, Political Possibilities and Counter-Revolution in Egypt

The Politics Department at SOAS is delighted to be hosting Atef Said, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, to celebrate the publication of his new book, Revolution Squared: Tahrir, Political Possibilities and Counter-Revolution in Egypt (Duke University Press, 2024).

In Revolution Squared Atef Said examines the 2011 Egyptian Revolution to trace the expansive range of liberatory possibilities and containment at the heart of every revolution. Drawing on historical analysis and his own participation in the revolution, Said outlines the importance of Tahrir Square and other physical spaces as well as the role of social media and digital spaces. 

He develops the notion of lived contingency—the ways revolutionary actors practice and experience the revolution in terms of the actions they do or do not take—to show how Egyptians made sense of what was possible during the revolution.

Praise for Revolution Squared

“Revolution Squared is an exciting book that presents a new and insightful framework for understanding the 2011 uprising in Egypt and its aftermath. Atef Shahat Said’s first-person narratives and astute sociological analysis offer a compelling perspective on the organization and longue durée of the revolutionary process. This is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary uprisings, in Egypt and beyond.”

-- Jessica Winegar, author of Creative Reckonings: The Politics of Art and Culture in Contemporary Egypt

“Atef Shahat Said’s thoughtful book Revolution Squared examines the hopes and disappointments of Egypt’s pro-democracy activists, theorizing revolution and counterrevolution alongside the activists’ own attempts to understand how they succeeded so dramatically in 2011 and were defeated so decisively in 2013.”

-- Charles Kurzman, Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill