Book Description

In his long academic career, historian André Raymond has been one of the foremost scholars of urban history in the Arab world, and in particular of Cairo during the Ottoman period. His work was instrumental in changing orientalist views on the decline and stagnation of this region prior to the modern period, and has inspired researchers across the academic spectrum. This diverse collection of studies by leading scholars in Egypt, the United States, and Europe offers a wide selection of recent research in Ottoman-era Egypt and the Middle East, and serves as a fitting tribute to Raymond's own work. A main theme of this volume is the urban society and economy in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, suggesting new ways through which the history of this period can be understood. Topics include a comparison of Egypt's experiences with Italy's in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and an investigation of European attitudes toward the Orient through the travel accounts of Russian pilgrims to the Levant. Contributors: Husam Muhammad Abd al-Muati, Sabri al-Adl, Magdi Guirguis, Pascale Ghazaleh, Peter Gran, Svetlana Kirillina, Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, Nicolas Michel, Abdul Karim Rafeq, Amira Sonbol.