Until the Arab Spring many in the west viewed the Middle East as frozen in its own traditions and history—a land of mosques and minarets, veiled women, despotic regimes, and desert sand. In this prophetic book, Asef Bayat reveals how, under the shadow of the authoritarian rule, religious moral authorities, and economic elites, ordinary people in the Middle East affected meaningful change. Life as Politics is an indispensible look into the forces that made the Arab revolts of 2011 possible.