Gamal Abdel Nasser burst onto the international stage in 1952 when he led the coup d'état that overthrew King Farouk, introducing revolutionary politics that culminated in the seizure of the Suez Canal and the ouster of British troops from Egyptian soil. Charismatic and larger than life, he was wildly popular for these victories and the many reforms and improvements he brought to his country. But in this biography, Alex Rowell demonstrates that Nasser was willing to resort to any means from propaganda to instigating riots, terror, and chemical warfare against other sovereign nations to achieve his dream of an “Arab nationalist republic in the Nasserist mold.” Rowell offers disturbing documentation of how Nasser operated in his efforts to see his vision come to fruition and points to the various reasons he failed to achieve his goal.

This is an engrossing and sobering read that will shed light on Nasser’s outsized influence in Arab politics and how his legacy has played out to this day.

***Author and Biographer Alex Rowell is a lifelong resident of the Middle East and a journalist and author in Lebanon. He has written for the BBC, the Economist, and the Washington Post, and is an editor at the Washington, DC–based magazine New Lines.***

Thank you to W.W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

My personal awareness of the politics of the Middle East started with the Yom Kippur War in 1973 (I was 11 years old), so I found this account of Nasser's influence on numerous countries (Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon and Libya) a fascinating primer on the Arab world of the 50s and 60s. It's a bit hard to keep track of all the coups and assassinations, but there are plenty of good stories here (mostly horrific).

I was also a bit depressed to see how opposition to brutal regimes often comes from advocates of liberal democracy, but that ultimately a vicious autocrat with another label ends up in charge. And we have seen this cycle repeated with the Arab Spring.

The book is definitely a (probably deserved) takedown of any myths regarding Nasser's benevolence or idealism, but shows him as seeking power at any cost. But Mr. Rowell didn't quite explain why Nasser remained such a revered figure in Egypt long after his death in 1970. When I travelled to Egypt in 1984, the Let's Go Travel Guide explained that while Anwar Sadat was revered in the US, the picture that was hung in many Egyptian homes was Gamal Abdel Nasser's. Apparently many Egyptians could forgive the brutality of the regime either because they were direct beneficiaries or because they were true believers.

Thanks to netgalley for providing an early copy for review.