ABSTRACT
A new era in Arab and Middle East politics began on July 23, 1952. A group of mid-ranking military officers calling themselves the Free Officers staged a coup in Egypt that ushered in the era of radical-nationalism, a movement to enact major social and political change both within the Arab states and in the Middle East as a whole, including the overthrow of the old elites and an end to Western influence. This era lasted throughout the 1950s and 1960s as coup-revolutions led by similar forces followed throughout the Arab world: in Iraq (1958), North Yemen (1962), Syria (1963), Algeria (1965), and South Yemen and Libya (1969). In all of these, the old order of parliamentary monarchies and traditional ruling elites—many beholden to or supported by foreign powers—was replaced by ostensible republics led by military officers committed to Arab nationalism, populism, and radical change in social, economic, and foreign policy. They all eventually became as authoritarian as the regimes they had overthrown.
