Revolution 1: The Story of the Tunisian Uprising Erin Clare Brown & Cyrus Roedel

Who would lead Tunisia into the next chapter of its history — the revolutionaries who had pushed Ben Ali out of power, or the returning Islamists who had spent years exiled in Europe?

Ben Ali was gone, but the trouble with popular uprisings is there's not a lot of foresight. So how do you bootstrap a democracy when you've never really had one? 

The final days of the revolution crashed into Tunis and onto Avenue Habib Bourguiba, but as protesters called for Ben Ali to get out, a dark secret was hiding just below their feet. 

The Arab Spring is often called the Twitter Revolution, but who were the people behind the keyboard sending all those tweets? And, maybe more importantly, who were the people reading and acting on the calls to protest they saw on social media?  This week we follow along with Lina Ben Mhenni and other bloggers and activists who were crucial to making the Tunisian Revolution a success. 

As Ben Ali loses his grasp on power, we meet two young lovers who are willing to risk everything to get the protests to spread. 

In a dusty mining town on the edge of the Sahara, we follow along with two young spies on a dangerous mission in what would become the prelude to the revolution.