In The Muslim Brothers in Society: Everyday Politics, Social Action, and Islamism in Mubarak's Egypt, Marie Vannetzel examines the everyday lives and activities of Brotherhood members in the decade that preceded the movement's rise and fall from power in 2011–13, with the aim to understand the challenges that it faced during its time in government and to identify the reasons behind its failure to meet them. She examines the question of how its short political success was linked to the social roots of the movement, investigating the Brotherhood's everyday politics and social activities during Hosni Mubarak's era. By doing so, Vannetzel makes a ground-breaking contribution to the study of Islamists’ political rise in Arab states, going beyond the established discourses that attribute successful politicization to their extensive social services networks. Further, the book digs deeper into these dynamics and examines two different sides of the Brotherhood's social activities: the political effects of the movement's social actions and the roots of this activism within the movement's internal dynamics.

Vannetzel relies on extensive fieldwork among grassroots networks and on numerous interviews with Brotherhood MPs, beneficiaries, and deputies in three districts of greater Cairo (Madinat Nasr, Helwan, and 15 Mayo), providing a cutting-edge ethnography of the movement's reliance on social networks for the purposes of its politicization. The book's major contribution on these ongoing debates is what Vannetzel calls “the politics of goodness,” based on the examination of how the Brotherhood operated in society and Islamist action in everyday life, tracing how the movement relied on unique mobilization tactics to appeal to a variety of social groups. Applying “the politics of goodness” as a conceptual framework, Vannetzel shows that there was no such thing as a parallel Islamist sector on the ground but that the reality of the Brotherhood's social activities was much more fluid and intersectional. She demonstrates that the movement and its members successfully distinguished themselves from the competitors through what she calls “the politics of disinterestedness,” promoting individual and collective forms of behavior broadly perceived as ethical conduct. It was this behavior that, in the decade preceding the 2011 uprisings, allowed for the informal social embedding of the Brotherhood into Egyptian society, being the means through which the Brothers portrayed themselves as “virtuous neighbours” without making their identity obvious, while also exhibiting traits that could potentially make them identifiable as members of the movement. This subtle “politics of goodness,” Vannetzel argues, led to judgments being made about the overall “virtue” of the Brotherhood and provides an explanation as to how affective and ethical bonds with their constituencies were built. The Brotherhood's virtuous behavior made it attractive to several societal groups that would go on to constitute its main popular base, be it the supporters and associates that were in turn instrumental to social services provision on the ground.

Vannetzel then turns toward the inner workings of the movement itself, examining its internal rule and religious ideology. Through its impressive ethnographic sources, the book shows that the ethical conduct that the Brotherhood displayed publicly was not a spontaneously adopted code of behavior, but rather it was the result of rigorous internal training. Through the movement's impressive indoctrination machine, Brothers were trained to serve as an exemplary model for other Muslims with the aim of bringing about a moral transformation of society according to its vision of Islam. Yet, while these dynamics were key to the Brotherhood's popularity under Mubarak, they also showed repeated contradictions between theory and practice and further entrenched internal hierarchy and discipline at the cost of the specialization of skills and disciplines. In particular, the book traces how these dynamics of social embedding and ethical conduct led to significant tensions within the movement, leading to the opposition and disengagement of some members and the increasing discontent of others. From this, Vannetzel shows that the 2011 uprisings and the Brotherhood's consequent quick politicization brought these internal conflicts to the fore, leading to the collapse of the consensus built around “the politics of goodness.” Hence, Vannetzel shows how the fragile balance on which the Brotherhood's political and social actions rested was disrupted after 2011, providing a theoretically sound and empirically rich alternative way of understanding the movement's historical failure in 2013.

Vannetzel's book contributes to several strands of literature on the Brotherhood as a comprehensive social movement. It addresses the question of how the Brotherhood politicized and achieved electoral success in 2011–12, specifically focusing on how it gained prominence and electoral support, aligning with and expanding on the works of Masoud, Brooke, and Wickham. Expanding on existing debates, she shows that the key to the political success of the Brotherhood's social activities rested in their depoliticization. Vannetzel uses the term “politics of goodness” to indicate the non-political nature of khadamāt (social services) and khayr (goodness, charity), which allowed the Brotherhood to appeal to both the middle and lower classes without having an explicit Islamist sector on the ground, hence gaining the strong popular base that allowed it to raise to power.

More importantly, Vannetzel contributes to a new strand of literature on the Brotherhood that emerged after 2013, specifically focusing on the movement's internal structures rather than on its relationship with the regime and the Egyptian population. Following the works of Kandil, al-Anani, Willi, and Ardovini and Biagini, the book focuses on the social dimension of the movement showing that indoctrination is not only crucial to maintain the strong collective identity the Brotherhood rested on, but also it created the public image of a “virtuous” Brother that made the movement attractive to sympathizers. It is these sympathizers, Vannetzel argues, that were key to the Brotherhood's provision of social services without being active members of the organization.

Vannetzel relies on an impressive ethnographic sample, but the book's contribution could have been expanded further by widening the scope of analysis beyond the three Cairo districts that she focuses on. Moreover, while her sources and interlocutors vary across the movement's ranks, it would have been interesting to see a greater focus on lower-ranking members rather than Brotherhood MPs. Nevertheless, the book makes a ground-breaking contribution to the study of the Brotherhood's external and internal dynamics and provides an invaluable platform for other scholars to build on. Hence, Vannetzel's book is a seminal reading for anyone interested in the Brotherhood and also for those looking to understand the complicated balance between Islamist groups’ politicization and their social networks on the ground.