With all of the scholarly work on the Middle East examining the dynamics of democratization, authoritarian durability, and, more recently, the Arab uprisings, it is quite striking that ideas have not figured more prominently in the analysis. Of course, reams have been written about the worldviews of various Islamist organizations and other important political actors, but only rarely have scholars systematically examined the way political entrepreneurs leverage ideas to advance their agendas, instead favoring interests-based explanations. This gap is all the more curious given how routinely elites construct narratives to advance their political agendas. One of the stunning ironies of the run-up to Egypt's 2011 uprising was how non-liberal groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the ruling National Democratic Party sought to harness liberal ideas in broad narratives about who should rule Egypt. In this context, Laurie Brand's Official Stories: Politics and National Narratives in Egypt and Algeria is a welcome addition to the literature on the challenges of political transformation in the Middle East. Her claim, which is based in part on Antonio Gramsci's observations about authoritarian systems, is a simple and compelling one: Nationalist narratives are critically important components in the defense of regimes. As such, accounts of the past, present, and future are neither static nor stable, but rather subject to revision as the political demands and fortunes of elites warrant.

Brand is at her best in the four core chapters of the book that trace the evolution of Egypt from Jamal ʿAbd al-Nasir to Husni Mubarak and Algeria's politics from Ahmed Ben Bella through the violence of the 1990s. Her detailed examination of founding documents, constitutions, charters, various laws, and especially history textbooks draws out the important and subtle shifts in nationalist narrative as political conditions dictate. Even for analysts steeped in contemporary Egyptian and Algerian political history, there is a lot to learn in these chapters. For all of Brand's competence on the Egyptian case, the sections of Official Stories that focus on Algeria are superior. This is likely the function of the confluence of her analytic goals and the dramatic events that have buffeted Algeria in the five decades since its independence from the internecine struggle immediately after the French departure to Houari Boumedienne's coup, his death and Chadli Benjedid's emergence, the conflict between arabisant and francisant Algerians, the so-called Berber Spring, the 1988 protests, aborted elections in 1991, and, of course the “Dark Decade” during which anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 Algerians were killed. At each juncture, Algeria's nationalist narrative required modification or renovation.

For all its value, Brand may have done herself and her readers a disservice with her decision to limit her study to the changing nature of nationalist narratives and the critical junctures that led to these modifications, but not their effects on politics. This leaves her analysis flat and her readers with questions. Official Stories would have benefited from a discussion of how counter-elites in Egypt and Algeria forced shifts in the prevailing nationalist narrative or sought to exploit them. The underlying vulnerability of these narratives to emotionally and materially appealing counter-narratives is left unexplained. The dynamic politics and struggles over identity in both of Brand's cases are related in important ways to the way elites have constructed nationalist narratives, but much of these political conflicts exist only as a set-up for the deconstruction of textbooks, for example. At times Brand gets so deep into the details of a constitution, charter, or textbook that she loses the thread of analysis. She misses an opportunity in chapter six, “Narrative Rescriptings and Legitimacy Crises,” to bring the work together in a way that more completely captures complex dynamics associated with how, why, and to what effect nationalist narratives are “rescripted.”

One can understand why Brand included an epilogue about the so-called “Arab Spring,” but she missed an opportunity here as well. Her discussion of Algeria, which did not have an uprising, is adequate, but she has considerably more material on Egypt with which to work. Yet Brand oddly de-emphasizes her analysis on nationalist narratives in favor of a short run-through of events since Mubarak was pushed from power. She mentions the contested 2012 constitution and efforts to revise textbooks, but somehow overlooks or gives short shrift to the rich set of materials that the deposed former president, Muhammad Mursi, and now President ʿAbd al-Fattah al-Sisi used in their efforts to reconstruct a nationalist narrative around the idiosyncratic ways the organizations they each represent—the Muslim Brotherhood and the armed forces respectively—understand what it means to “protect the revolution.”

Brand's overall analysis and insights outweigh these shortcomings. For anyone in the broad analytic community interested in understanding how ideas and nationalist narratives intersect with elite efforts to ensure regime stability and legitimacy, Official Stories is a good place to begin.