This is a great collection of articles and essays initially published on Jadaliyya as the then-called “Arab Spring” began. Although most of the contributors are academics, the chapters are more journalistic, which makes them all the more interesting. The outbreak of protests, revolutions, and even civil wars was something wholly new, and it was unclear how to make sense of it at the time. Reading this text now, it feels like it was a wholly different world; it was a lifetime ago.

Perhaps the single best essay on here is actually a translated Facebook post by an unnamed Syrian dissident: it goes in detail over the process of imprisonment and torture that he experienced, and he urges other activists not to fear. It was such a powerful piece filled with hope and defiance.