Marwan Bishara's The Invisible Arab is a clear-headed and thought-provoking appraisal of the precarious but joyously hopeful place so many Arab nations find themselves after the "Arab Spring" of 2010-2011. Bishara, a senior political analyst at Al Jazeera, is well-positioned to offer an intelligent appraisal of the forces that brought these revolutions to fragile birth, the political players involved and their capacity to retain power in a relatively benign fashion or succumb to the chaos and corruption that have plagued these nations in recent years.
Bishara makes the point that protesters who gathered in various Arab nations were faced with major difficulties. In trying to guide their countries toward democracy, they were presenting their people with an idea and word that had been cheapened by the Bush administration and backed with bombs and violence in Iraq. Coupled with the West's long support of many despotic regimes and pressure by Islamist factions to develop more hierarchical, less secular forms of revolt, it's close to miraculous that any of the revolts ever took off.
In addition to recent events, Bishara also offers a concise history of 20th-century Arab states and an optimistic vision of their possible futures--provided that varied viewpoints can be embraced and that the urge for "retributive justice" can be denied. --Donald Powell, freelance writer