A Look To 19th Century France For Insight On Egypt

08:00

December 16, 2013

Painting by Horace Vernet depicts the Battle at Soufflot barricades at Rue Soufflot Street on June 24, 1848. (Wikimedia Commons)

To make sense of the turmoil in Egypt, Sheri Berman, a professor at Barnard College in New York City, argues that we should look to the 1848 revolution in France.

In her New York Times op-ed "Marx’s Lesson for the Muslim Brothers," she writes:

Those same patterns are playing out in Egypt today — with liberals and authoritarians playing themselves, and Islamists playing the role of socialists. Once again, an inexperienced and impatient mass movement has overreached after gaining power. Once again, liberals have been frightened by the changes their former partners want to enact and have come crawling back to the old regime for protection. And as in 1848, authoritarians have been happy to take back the reins of power.

Berman joins Here & Now's Robin Young to explain why.

Guest

Sheri Berman, professor of political science at Barnard College. She is author of "The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century."

This segment aired on December 16, 2013.