Skip to content
Public Seminar
Public Seminar
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Sections
    • The Arts
    • Economy
    • Education
    • Habitats
    • History
    • Migration
    • Philosophy
    • Politics
    • Race
    • Sex & Gender
    • Science & Technology
  • Podcasts
    • Unsettled
    • The Ostriches
    • Multi-Verse
    • Past Present
    • Exiles on 12th Street
    • Why Now?
    • Unproductive Labor
  • About
    • About
    • Submissions
    • Our Team
    • Donate
    • Issues Archive
  • Symposia
    • The Anti-Immigrant Election
    • The Mysteries of Taylor Swift
    • Rats: A Cautionary Tail
    • Teaching While Black
    • Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts
    • Constitutional Politics
    • Symposium on Love
    • The Left and the Crisis of Democracy

Michael Schmale

MFA candidate in Creative Writing at The New School.
Democracy

Why Egypt Didn’t Get the Revolution it Needed

An interview with Peter Hessler

April 27, 2020 • by Peter Hessler and Michael Schmale
For American expatriates living in China in the first decade of the 2000s, Peter Hessler was already something of a household name, not just as the New Yorker’s China correspondent, but as a public intellectual. His books became fixtures of laowai bookshelves almost as soon as they were published. His ...
Read More
Why Egypt Didn’t Get the Revolution it Needed
Subscribe

Join our global intellectual commons

Free to subscribe. No spam. Delivered by Substack.

Most Popular
1
Driven Mad by a Marxist Daughter
March 25, 2024 by Justin Joque
Driven Mad by a Marxist Daughter
2
Jackson Does Not Belong Anywhere on the Twenty
May 4, 2016 by Daniel Walker Howe
Jackson Does Not Belong Anywhere on the Twenty
3
Ghosting: How Technology Is Changing Our Hope for Connection
March 26, 2026 by Mariana Giacobbe Goldberg and Dominic Pettman
Ghosting: How Technology Is Changing Our Hope for Connection
4
Resurgent Dreams of the Capitalist Family’s Positive Supersession
March 30, 2026 by Sophie Lewis
Resurgent Dreams of the Capitalist Family’s Positive Supersession
5
Socrates and His Teaching
April 30, 2018 by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Socrates and His Teaching
More in Democracy
Europe & Central Asia
It May Be the Last Time
November 10, 2025 by Edvardas Šumila
It May Be the Last Time
Democracy
A Republic, If We Can Afford It
November 6, 2025 by Larry Schwartz
A Republic, If We Can Afford It
The Internet
Is Social Media Destroying Democracy—Or Giving It to Us Good and Hard?
October 28, 2025 by Dan Williams
Is Social Media Destroying Democracy—Or Giving It to Us Good and Hard?
Philosophy
Can Poetry Re-Enchant the Modern World?
October 27, 2025 by Sarah V. Schweig
Can Poetry Re-Enchant the Modern World?
Higher Ed
Academic Freedom in a Time of Destruction: Reconsidering Extramural Speech
September 4, 2025 by Judith Butler
Academic Freedom in a Time of Destruction: Reconsidering Extramural Speech

The New School

Public Seminar is a journal of ideas and debate published by the Public Seminar Publishing Initiative at The New School. Our free, nonprofit publication is made possible by the support of The New School and the generosity of our readers.

Newsletter

Free to subscribe. No spam.
Delivered by Substack.

Connect With Us

Instagram
Bluesky
Facebook
Twitter

Copyright © 2014–2026 The Editorial Board of Public Seminar, All Rights Reserved.