"This is a wide-ranging, pithy, and painstakingly thorough collection, at once gripping and informative. It fills a critical lacuna in Middle East Studies and in the study of Islamist groups in particular, which, although already impressive in the breadth of their literature, remain mostly on the order of hagiographies and eloquent apologetics, more often than not justifying Islamism rather than mining its history and subjecting it to the honest critic s scalpel. Barry Rubin s collection has distinguished itself from the rest quite brilliantly here, supplementing the field with a refreshing dispassionate treatment of the Brotherhoods, and providing specialists, students and the general public with an alternative reading to common platitudes currently dominating the field. What s more, Rubin and the other contributors to this volume did that with alacrity, penetrating attention to detail, scrupulous plumbing of sources, and a pellucid jargon-free style making this collection at once instructive and strikingly accessible." - Franck Salameh, Boston College