Into the Hands of the Soldiers

ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR David D. Kirkpatrick, a correspondent for The New York Times , was banned from Egypt for writing this book: the definitive account of the turn back toward authoritarianism in Cairo and across the Middle East. Egypt has long set the paradigm for Arab autocracy. It is the keeper of the peace with Israel and the cornerstone of the American-backed regional order. So when Egyptians rose up to demand democracy in 2011, their thirty months of freedom convulsed t