TAHRIR Square, before the fall of Mubarak. As night was falling over Cairo, the young people joining the protest were lying around. Some were sleeping, others reading. A BBC story said that under the shade of the tanks guarding the square, one of the demonstrators was reading a book by Gene Sharp.

And from then on, Sharp was hailed by the BBC and The New York Times as the inspiration for the movement that erupted in Egypt and Tunisia. Rather sur