The Last Khedive of Egypt


Book Description

These memoirs - dictated by Abbas II to his secretary several decades after he had been exiled from Egypt in 1914 - provide a window on the mechanics of the strained relations between sovereign and the power occupying his country. They reveal a caring man, desirous of reform, with definite progressive ideas. He was disillusioned by sycophantic Egyptian politicians who, fearing British wrath, rarely supported their monarch.




The Last Cheetah of Egypt


Book Description

At the end of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was in sharp decline. However, out of the ashes of this empire ascended an Egyptian royal family that would go on to dominate the Middle East in the early nineteenth century and rule Egypt for over 150 years. Beginning in the eighteenth century with the rise of Mohammad Ali and the French Invasion of Egypt and continuing until the abdication of King Farouk in 1953, a rich Egyptian history tells a story at the intersection of struggle and empowerment, politics and family, and religion and freedom. In The Last Cheetah of Egypt, author David B. Rosten explores both the told and untold narrative history of the Egyptian royal family from 1805 to 1953. Himself living with the royal family and having personal connections and relationships with the late King Farouks family and with Queen Nazli herself, Rosten shares his extensive historical research as well as captivating stories and details of the royal familys lifestyle, love, struggles, and successes. Taking place during a clash of civilizations, a poignant history unfolds of an Egyptian royal family caught between modern ideas and ancient rulesand what especially comes to life is the story of Queen Nazli, a woman who expressed her freedom and glided seamlessly between these two worlds with grace and dignity.




Neslishah


Book Description

Twice a princess, twice exiled, Neslishah Sultan had an eventful life. When she was born in Istanbul in 1921, cannons were fired in the four corners of the Ottoman Empire, commemorative coins were issued in her name, and her birth was recorded in the official register of the palace. After all, she was an imperial princess and the granddaughter of Sultan Vahiddedin. But she was the last member of the imperial family to be accorded such honors: in 1922 Vahiddedin was deposed and exiled, replaced as caliph-but not as sultan-by his brother (and Neslishah's other grandfather) Abdülmecid; in 1924 Abdülmecid was also removed from office, and the entire imperial family, including three-year-old Neslishah, were sent into exile. Sixteen years later on her marriage to Prince Abdel Moneim, the son of the last khedive of Egypt, she became a princess of the Egyptian royal family. And when in 1952 her husband was appointed regent for Egypt's infant king, she took her place at the peak of Egyptian society as the country's first lady, until the abolition of the monarchy the following year. Exile followed once more, this time from Egypt, after the royal couple faced charges of treason. Eventually Neslishah was allowed to return to the city of her birth, where she died at the age of 91 in 2012. Based on original documents and extensive personal interviews, this account of one woman's extraordinary life is also the story of the end of two powerful dynasties thirty years apart.







Egypt Under the Khedives, 1805-1879


Book Description

Robert Hunter's Egypt Under the Khedives, brought back into print in this paperback edition, was a pioneering work when first published in the 1980s, as Western scholars began to comb Egypt's national archives for an understanding of the social and economic history of the country. It is now recognized as one of the fundamental books on nineteenth-century Egypt: it is so archivally based and empirically solid that it forms the starting-point for all research. Hunter used land and pension records in Dar al-Mahfuzat, in addition to published archival collections like those of Amin Sami Pasha, to enlarge our understanding of the social dimensions of the politics of the period. A secondary and very important contribution of the work is its explanation of the way in which "collaborating bureaucrat-landowners" aided in the country's subordination to European political and economic dominance in the reign of Ismail. The big chapter on the unraveling of khedivial absolutism is a splendid piece of storytelling, as it explores the wild fluctuations in Egypt's finances, Ismail's desperate gambits to ward off European administrative scrutiny, and the defection of key officials in his regime to the European side. Egypt Under the Khedives appears on Oxford University's 'Best Thirty' list of "must-read" books in the field of Middle East history.




The Khedive's Egypt


Book Description




Tel El-Kebir 1882


Book Description

A detailed, compact volume on the British response, under Lieutenant-General Wolseley, to Egyptian mutiny. In 1881, the Egyptian army mutinied against the Khedive of Egypt and forced him to appoint Said Ahmed Arabi as Minister of War. In March 1882, Arabi was made a Pasha and from this time on acted as a dictator. Arabi demanded that the foreigners be driven out of Egypt and called for the massacre of Christians. This prompted an armed British response, first in the form of a naval bombardment of Alexandria, and then as an expeditionary force under Lieutenant-General Wolseley. This book explores the entire campaign, including Sir Wolseley's 'textbook' operation that was planned and executed with masterly competence.




Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali


Book Description

This account of Egyptian society traces the economic reasons for Muhammad Ali's rise to power and the effects of his regime on Egypt's development as a nation state.




Egypts African Empire


Book Description

This book is a detailed and original study of the creation of the province of Equatoria, located in present-day Southern Sudan. No detailed account has previously been published on the effort to conquer and create a new Egyptian province in the 1870s in the interior of Africa, despite its importance to the history of the on-going northsouth conflict in the Sudan. The annexation of Equatoria emerged from the Khedive (viceroy) Ismail's aspiration for an African empire that would control the source of the White Nile at Lake Victoria. At the time he was under pressure from the British government to suppress the lucrative slave trade in the Turco-Egyptian Sudan, and to this end the new province was to be under direct control of Cairo and not the authorities in Khartoum. The two conquering expeditions of Equatoria were led by Britons, Samuel Baker and Charles Gordon (later Governor-General of the Sudan). With them were other Europeans, Americans, Sudanese and Egyptians. Baker, Gordon and some of the others left detailed accounts of their experience in the region. All of which contribute to our knowledge not only of the difficulties involved in the annexation of a region thousands of kilometres from Cairo, but also geographical data and a record of the complex human relations that developed between the men involved in the expeditions, and the creation of the new province. Official documents from the Egyptian state archive, Dar al-Wathaiq, provide detailed accounts of the politics of the annexation of Equatoria, and these accounts are discussed in their historical context.




Historical Dictionary of Egypt


Book Description

Egypt’s was the first non-Western country to undergo an industrial revolution. It was a major commercial center during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was one of the first countries to have (albeit briefly) a constitutional government. Its struggle for independence was among the earliest in the non-Western world. Its capital, Cairo, has served as a headquarters and a meeting place for nationalist leaders. Its schools and universities attracted students from many other African and Asian countries. For the Arab world, its educational and legal institutions set the pattern that most other Arabic-speaking countries have followed. Its books, magazines, and newspapers circulate widely. Its radio and television broadcasting became the model for other Arab states. The leadership of Jamal Abd al-Nasir and Anwar al-Sadat profoundly influenced other Arab and Third World leaders. And the demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square became the iconic movement for the so-called “Arab Spring” in the rest of the Middle East. This fourth edition of Historical Dictionary of Egypt covers its history from its emergence as an independent actor during the reign of Ali Bey (1760-1772) up to and including the first two years of the Arab Spring (February 2013). This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on of persons, events, institutions, political groups, economic and social conditions, policies, relationships with other countries, ideas, religions, ideologies, and commodities relevant to the modern history of Egypt. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Egypt.