In Life as Politics Asef Bayat offers up a historically rich, analytically rigorous and conceptually innovative account of Middle East oppositional movements . . . [A] tour de force that will inspire as well as inform scholarship on Middle East social movements-most importantly by moving beyond a preoccupation with 'exceptionalist' tendencies. Above all, this work establishes Asef Bayat as a ... Read morevirtuoso of the sociological imaginary. Specialist and non-specialist readers alike will find themselves transported to the streets of the Middle East and afforded a first-hand view of social and political activism in the making.
Navid Pourmokhtari
Against the Current
When Life as Politics was published..., Asef Bayat's arguments on grassroots dynamism as the harbinger of democratic transformations in the Arab world seemed a utopian hope. Barely a year later, as events of the 2011 Arab Spring continue to unfold, his critical insights on everyday forms and spaces of political activity in the region have become prescient.
Contemporary Sociology Life as Politics offers a brilliant alternative perspective on public life by taking seriously the daily lives and the social agency of ordinary people.
Middle East Book Reads Asef Bayat has penned a remarkable study. Life as Politics should be a mandatory read for any journalist, scholar or politician who has never been to the Middle East.
Arab News Show Less