Until relatively recently, natural history museums were preoccupied with taxonomy. Row after row of glass cases (and in the back, drawer after drawer of samples) sought to group insects, fish, reptiles, and mammals into categories based on their appearance, their genealogy, and their diet. Ambitious dioramas often showed them in repose, and sometimes even showed them in action, but the ways that species engaged with each other and with their environment was often an afterthought.

David Govrin's book on the “new liberalism” in the Arab world reminds me of one of those exhibits. After brief surveys of the underlying ideas of liberalism and the fate of liberalism in the Arab world in the early twentieth century, Govrin focuses his book largely on the articles that a select group of writers published in the 1990s and 2000s. In doing so, he seeks to establish a taxonomy of liberal Arab thought leaders. Scholars of the Middle East are likely to recognize familiar names and even some friends: Abdel Monem Said (the sole “establishment liberal”), Osama al-Ghazaly Harb, Hala Mustafa, and Khalid al-Dakhil (“semi-establishment liberals”), Hazem Saghieh and Saad Eddin Ibrahim (among his “independent liberals”) all make frequent appearances here. He cites their views on why democracy has seemed to founder in the Arab world, and what they think a more ideal Arab state might look like. The book is overwhelmingly Egypt-focused, and popular Gulf writers who have written on many of these themes, such as Abderrahman al-Rashed and Sultan al-Qasimi, are largely absent.

While Govrin surveys perhaps twenty writers, he pays relatively little attention to how those writers engage with their environment: either with the state that they seek to reform or with the publics they seek to engage. These writers seem to write in a vacuum, without visits from the security services, generous state subsidies for more benign activities, or any kind of public engagement. In fact, the attractiveness of their ideas to a broad public seems assumed at times. As these writers gained exposure on the Arab satellite television stations that have spread since the mid-1990s and on the online outlets that flourished alongside them, the writers’ audience expanded exponentially. Their ideas did not become widely accepted, so it is all the more curious that these failure of the writers to gain broad traction is not explored.

While I am unclear on the timing of the dissertation on which this was based, it appears to have been conceptualized in the mid-2000s, which the author describes as the “peak of the public discourse” in the early 21st century Middle East (ix). It was completed in 2011, when many thought democracy was on the march and both the salience of Islamist politics and the resurgence of authoritarian regimes were remote prospects. This book is, in some ways then, a period piece, capturing the optimism that some felt with the multiplying outlets for liberal writers in the decade before 2011. In that same decade, and absent from this work, was the broad literature on the durability and adaptability of Arab authoritarianism. The dissertation on which this was based was perhaps a little too exultant in 2011, and it fares even less well in today's prevailing Arab political environment.

Govrin is an Israeli career diplomat who now serves as ambassador to Cairo, and he can be excused for his optimism. As a professional, he clearly saw Arab intellectuals with whom he could engage when many in Israel were—and are—skeptical of the possibility of any Arab political reform. His book is a helpful cataloguing of elite liberal ideas in the Arab world in the last century. The book might be read as a long refutation of those who argue there is no one to talk with on the Arab side. But as an analyst of how Arab societies work and the role that intellectuals play in its daily life and in its governance, Govrin is a less valuable guide.

The book provides a useful starting point for students looking to orient themselves in some of this writing, but it is marred by some errors that I wish an editor had caught. For example, the distinction between an ʿayn and hamza is often garbled, so Abel Monem Said's name is consistently spelled “Saʾid” rather than “Saʿid,” and al-ʿAfif al-Akhdar's first name is presented as “al-ʾAfif” on page 98 and “al-ʿAfif” on page 99. Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is presented as “Saudi Crown Prince Walid Ibn Talal,” (130) representing at the very least a grand promotion.

While the title of this book promises a textbook that could be of great use to survey courses that seek to explain the genesis of the Arab uprisings that began in 2011, professors seeking such a book will need to look elsewhere. But for those who seek to undermine the notion that the Arab world is monolithic, unthinking, and reactionary, this book provides a useful starting point.