The recent Arab Spring (which started in 2010 and is still going on) has been considered the beginning of a transition process for some Arab countries and in particular North African countries. In the last years a bulimic production of books and articles have investigated the Arab Spring by mainly focusing on events from the 2011 onwards and/ or proposing a single narrow-minded perspective. A broader historical comparative approach is needed for investigating and underlining both similarities and differences among the different target countries and their revolutionary and/or revolutionary-like events/processes, by also contributing (and this is the aim of this article) to shed light on “under-studied history of contention” in the MENA region.