Sometimes a striking phrase will not go away. It seems to contain a vital but elusive idea. This research project has been dogged and inspired by such a phrase: ‘The people defied the authorities and took matters into their own hands.’ This was what some Palestinians in the late 1980s said to doctoral researcher Sonia Nimr about their uprising of 1936–9 (Nimr 1990: 3). My aim has been to write a history of this kind of transgressive mobilization in the Middle East and North Africa since the eighteenth century. Along the way, I have incurred many debts.

The research was made possible by a two-year ESRC Mid-Career Development Fellowship which bought out my teaching during 2009–11, and by a term's research leave granted by the London School of Economics (LSE) during 2011–12. Thanks are also due to the Archives du Ministère des Affaires étrangères at La Courneuve, in France, the Archives of the Hoover Institution in Stanford University in the United States, the Institut Français du Proche-Orient in Syria, the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand in Paris and the British Library in London, where much of the research was conducted. I would like to thank the academics, journalists, activists and intellectuals in the region who were generous with their time during the research, especially Abd Al-Aziz Al-Arab, Yasser Alwan, Naira Antoun, Mustafa Bassiouny, Ralph Bodenstein, Vittoria Capresi, Khaled Fahmy, Dina Makram Ebeid, Sameh Idriss, Philip Rizk, Tamer Wageeh and Muhammad Zahid. Among LSE colleagues, Fawaz Gerges’ good sense and support has long been important to me. John Breuilly and Martha Mundy's intellect and erudition have been a source of engagement and learning. Thanks are also due to George Lawson and the Global Historical Sociology Workshop where there were useful discussions and presentations. I am grateful to John Sidel, whose wisdom, mentoring, good humour and engagement with the manuscript have been important throughout. This book has been enriched by the presentations and discussions in the LSE-based seminar series, Social Movements and Popular Mobilization in the Middle East. I am grateful to the Middle East Centre and the Government Department for supporting the series, and to paper presenters and discussants Maha Abdelrahman, Gilbert Achcar, Charles Anderson, Fadi Bardawil, Claire Beaugrand, Joel Beinin, Marie Duboc, Salwa Ismail, Charles Tripp and Frédéric Vairel.