Why Occupy a Square? : C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd : 9781849042659 : 01 Nov 2013 : On 25 January 2011, tens of thousands of Egyptians came out on the streets to protest against emergency rule and police brutality. Eighteen days later, Mubarak, one of the longest sitting dictators in the region, had gone. How are we to make sense of these events? Was this a revolution, a revolutionary moment? How did the protests come about? How were they able to outmanoeuvre the police? Was this really a 'leaderless revolution,' as so many pundits claimed, or were the protests an out- growth of the protest networks that had developed over the past decade? Why did so many people with no history of activism participate? What role did economic and systemic crises play in creating the conditions for these pro- tests to occur? Was this really a Facebook revolution? Why Occupy a Square? is a dynamic exploration of the shape and timing of these extraordinary events, the players behind them, and the tactics an