Following the defeat of Arab armies in the 1948 Palestine war, the Arab world went into an era of political assassinations and military coups that culminated in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which brought Gamal Abdel Nasser into the leadership of Egypt. Nasser's ascend to power was a turning point in the history of the region and the revolutionary wave had spread to Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. This wave however faced a historic defeat in the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. The author states that this defeat was worse than that of 1948 and had signaled the end of the Nasserite revolutionary wave, which was replaced by the Islamist wave. This wave reached its climax in early 1980s after the Islamic Revolution in Iran and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which turned Afghanistan into a hub for Mujahideen. The Arab revolutions that succeeded did not bring al-Nadha nor freedom, instead they had turned into authoritarian regimes. These developments and the 8-year Iran–Iraq War have struck a fatal blow to the Arab revolutionary wave of hope.