Elizabeth F. Thompson is associate professor of history at the University of Virginia. Her new book, Justice Interrupted: The Struggle for Constitutional Government in the Middle East, traces the roots of the 2011 Arab Spring to the first constitutional movements of the late 19th century. Her first book, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon, won prizes from the American Historical Association and the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. Prof. Thompson has also won awards from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Library of Congress.