Although the popular uprisings of 2011 were not driven by Islamist forces, it is the Islamist movements, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, that have filled the power vacuums that opened up with the collapse of the regimes of the region. How did they do it and how will they manage their new political role?

In this authoritative analysis, Alison Pargeter follows the twists and turns of the Muslim Brotherhood as it battled through the years of oppression under authoritarian regimes to finally become a key and legitimate political actor. From Egypt and Syria to Tunisia and Libya, the Brotherhood and its affiliates are now faced with the complex task of transforming themselves from semi-clandestine opposition movements into legitimate political actors and, in some cases, into ruling powers.

A fully updated paperback edition with two new chapters.

Alison Pargeter is a writer and analyst specializing in the Middle East and North Africa and in Islamist movements in the region and beyond. She has held academic positions at the University of Cambridge and Kings College, London, and is a senior associate at Menas Associates, an international consultancy firm. She is the author of Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi and The New Frontiers of Jihad: Radical Islam in Europe.