Department of History          University of Michigan
History 497          Fall, 2013

SYLLABUS

Course Title: Background to the Arab Spring
Office Hours: Thurs. 2-5
Instructor: Juan Cole
Telephone: 763-1599; e-mail: jrcole@umich.edu

Books assigned (available at Ulrich's, Barnes and Noble)

Manuel Castells. Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2012)

Bassam Haddad, Rosie Bsheer and Ziad Abu Rish, eds., The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of an Old Order? (London: Pluto Press, 2012)

Lindsey Hilsum, Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution (New York: Penguin, 2012)

David W. Lesch, Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012)

Marc Lynch, The Arab Uprising (New York: Public Affairs, 2012)

Tarek Osman, Egypt on the Brink (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011)

Kenneth Perkins, A History of Modern Tunisia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)

Course Topics

Sept. 5      Orientation

Sept. 12      The Internet, Millennials and Social Movements


Castells, Outrage and Hope

Sept. 19      Tunisia


Perkins, Tunisia, chapters 4-7
Haddad, Dawn, pp. 49-76

Sept. 26      Reading Assignment only


Osman, Egypt on the Brink, first half

Oct. 3      Egypt: The First Republic


Osman, Egypt on the Brink, second half

Oct. 10      Egypt and Revolution, Part 1


Haddad, Dawn, Section III

FIRST PRECIS DUE FEB. 21

Oct. 17      Fall Break

Oct. 24      Writing day only: work on Precis no. 1

Oct. 31      Gulf Reverberations: Bahrain and Saudi Arabia


Haddad, Dawn, Chapters 21-25, 31

FIRST PRECIS DUE OCTOBER 31

Nov. 7      Libya


Jacques Roumani, "From Republic to Jamahiriya: Libya's Search for Political Community," Middle East Journal, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Spring, 1983), pp. 151-168 (JSTOR)
Hilsum, Sandstorm

Nov. 14      Syria


Lesch, Fall of the House of Assad


SECOND PRECIS DUE NOVEMBER 14

Nov. 21      The Arab Uprising


Lynch, The Arab Uprising, first half

Dec. 5      Summing Up


Lynch, The Arab Uprising, second half

FINAL PRECIS DUE DEC 5

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