Israel Gershoni - Böcker

Throughout the 20th century, Egyptian nationalism has alternately revolved around three primary axes: a local Egyptian territorial nationalism, a sense of Arab ethnic-linguistic nationalism, and an identification with the wider Muslim community. This detailed study is devoted to the first major phase in the perennial debate over nationalism in modern Egypt--the territorial nationalism dominant in Egypt in the early 20th century. The first section of the bookexamines the effects of World War I and its aftermath, which temporarily gave rise to an exclusively Egyptianist national orientation in Egypt. Subsequent sections consider the intellectual and politicaldimensions of Egyptian interwar years. Egypt, Islam and the Arabs is the first volume in a new Oxford series, Studies in Middle Eastern History. The General Editors of the series are Bernard Lewis of Princeton University, Itamar Rabinovich of Tel Aviv University, and Roger M. Savory of the University of Toronto.

Today's discourse on nationalism is engaged by dynamic theoretical models derived from studies in literary criticism, cultural anthropology, socioeconomics, and psychology. This is the first book of its kind to apply this new theoretical framework to the Arab Middle East, with essays by Beth Baron, Fred Halliday, Rashid Khalidi, and Emmanuel Sivan.

This collection of ten essays focuses on the way major schools and individuals have narrated histories of the Middle East. The distinguished contributors explore the historiography of economic and intellectual history, nationalism, fundamentalism, colonialism, the media, slavery, and gender. In doing so, they engage with some of the most controversial issues of the twentieth century.Middle Eastern studies today cover a rich and varied terrain, yet the study of the profession itself has been relatively neglected. There is, however, an ever-present need to examine what the research has chosen to include and exclude and to become more consciously aware of shifts in research approaches and methods. This collection illuminates the evolving state of the art and suggests new directions for further research.

The authors examine the emergence of nationalism among the Egyptian middle class during the 1930s and 1940s, and its growing awareness of an Arab and Muslim identity. Previously Egypt did not define itself in these terms, but adopted a territorial and isolationist outlook. It is the revolutionary transformation in Egyptian self-understanding which took place during this period that provides the focus of this study. The authors demonstrate how the growth of an urban middle class, combined with economic and political failures in the 1930s, eroded the foundations of the earlier order. Alongside domestic events, the momentum of Arabism abroad and the impact of events in Palestine, necessitated Egyptian regional involvement. Egypt's present position as a major player in Arab, Muslim and Third World affairs has its roots in the fundamental transition of Egyptian national identity at this time.

The authors examine the emergence of nationalism among the Egyptian middle class during the 1930s and 1940s, and its growing awareness of an Arab and Muslim identity. Previously Egypt did not define itself in these terms, but adopted a territorial and isolationist outlook. It is the revolutionary transformation in Egyptian self-understanding which took place during this period that provides the focus of this study. The authors demonstrate how the growth of an urban middle class, combined with economic and political failures in the 1930s, eroded the foundations of the earlier order. Alongside domestic events, the momentum of Arabism abroad and the impact of events in Palestine, necessitated Egyptian regional involvement. Egypt's present position as a major player in Arab, Muslim and Third World affairs has its roots in the fundamental transition of Egyptian national identity at this time.

Confronting Fascism in Egypt offers a new reading of the political and intellectual culture of Egypt during the interwar era. Though scholarship has commonly emphasized Arab political and military support of Axis powers, this work reveals that the shapers of Egyptian public opinion were largely unreceptive to fascism, openly rejecting totalitarian ideas and practices, Nazi racism, and Italy's and Germany's expansionist and imperialist agendas. The majority (although not all) of Egyptian voices supported liberal democracy against the fascist challenge, and most Egyptians sought to improve and reform, rather than to replace and destroy, the existing constitutional and parliamentary system. The authors place Egyptian public discourse in the broader context of the complex public sphere within which debate unfolded—in Egypt's large and vibrant network of daily newspapers, as well as the weekly or monthly opinion journals—emphasizing the open, diverse, and pluralistic nature of the interwar political and cultural arena. In examining Muslim views of fascism at the moment when classical fascism was at its peak, this enlightening book seriously challenges the recent assumption of an inherent Muslim predisposition toward authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and "Islamo-Fascism."

Confronting Fascism in Egypt offers a new reading of the political and intellectual culture of Egypt during the interwar era. Though scholarship has commonly emphasized Arab political and military support of Axis powers, this work reveals that the shapers of Egyptian public opinion were largely unreceptive to fascism, openly rejecting totalitarian ideas and practices, Nazi racism, and Italy's and Germany's expansionist and imperialist agendas. The majority (although not all) of Egyptian voices supported liberal democracy against the fascist challenge, and most Egyptians sought to improve and reform, rather than to replace and destroy, the existing constitutional and parliamentary system. The authors place Egyptian public discourse in the broader context of the complex public sphere within which debate unfolded—in Egypt's large and vibrant network of daily newspapers, as well as the weekly or monthly opinion journals—emphasizing the open, diverse, and pluralistic nature of the interwar political and cultural arena. In examining Muslim views of fascism at the moment when classical fascism was at its peak, this enlightening book seriously challenges the recent assumption of an inherent Muslim predisposition toward authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and "Islamo-Fascism."

Includes 18 illustrations. Commemorating the Nation is a study of the relationship between public commemoration and national identity in Egypt over the course of the twentieth century. Appropriating insights from recent theoretical discussions of collective memory and public commemoration, it examines the modes by which different Egyptian communities of memorythe state under successive regimes; rival political forces and movements; elite and non-elite groups within civil societyremembered and commemorated the Egyptian national struggle, its defining moments and heroic figures, in specific sites of national memory. The book's analysis ranges across the twentieth century, tracing the changing place of selected sites of national memory from the pre-World-War-I years through the decades of the parliamentary monarchy to the era of the Egyptian Republic. Each of its three main sections is devoted to a different form of commemoration. The first is the nationalist art of Egypt's "national sculptor" Mahmud Mukhtar (1891-1934) and how his monumental icons expressing the nationalist ethos, specifically his sculpture Nahdat Misr and his statues of the leader of the 1919 Revolution, Sa`d Zaghlul, have been represented and re-represented by successive generations of Egyptians. The second section analyzes the modalities through which the historic figures of Egypt's Nationalist Party, Mustafa Kamil (1874-1908) and Muhammad Farid (1868-1919), have been preserved and commemorated through the remainder of the twentieth century. The third section considers national holiday celebrations as sites of Egyptian collective memory, particularly the celebration of the July 1952 Revolution during the reign of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the commemoration of the 1973 Crossing of the Suez Canal under his successor Anwar al-Sadat. The book is the product of fieldwork in Egypt as well as of extensive research in Egyptian publications. By analyzing nationalism through the prism of public commemoration, the work extends our understanding of the shaping of national identity and the evolution of national imagining in modern Egypt. Although it focuses on Egypt, its findings have implications for the study of collective memory and public commemoration in general.

The first book to present an analysis of Arab response to fascism and Nazism from the perspectives of both individual countries and the Arab world at large, this collection problematizes and ultimately deconstructs the established narratives that assume most Arabs supported fascism and Nazism leading up to and during World War II. Using new source materials taken largely from Arab memoirs, archives, and print media, the articles reexamine Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Iraqi responses in the 1930s and throughout the war.While acknowledging the individuals, forces, and organizations that did support and collaborate with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism focuses on the many other Arab voices that identified with Britain and France and with the Allied cause during the war. The authors argue that many groups within Arab societies-elites and non-elites, governing forces, and civilians-rejected Nazism and fascism as totalitarian, racist, and, most important, as new, more oppressive forms of European imperialism. The essays in this volume argue that, in contrast to prevailing beliefs that Arabs were de facto supporters of Italy and Germany-since “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”-mainstream Arab forces and currents opposed the Axis powers and supported the Allies during the war. They played a significant role in the battles for control over the Middle East.

A study of Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, widely recognized as the creator of Egyptian nationalism, and his impact on Egyptian culture and history.Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid (1872–1963) stands among the most creative, impactful intellectuals of modern Egypt and the Middle East. While best known as the architect of Egyptian nationalism, his nationalist endeavor was in fact part of his broader project to bring enlightenment to Egypt under the yoke of British colonialism. Through his articles, editorials, and mentoring, his newspaper al-Jarida became a key forum for the lively debates of the time, ranging from the role of Islam in society to women's inclusion, all toward shaping a unique colonial modernity for his country.The most comprehensive study of Lutfi, his writing, and his impact, Enlightenment in Colonial Egypt deconstructs the view that he was a covert apologist for empire out of admiration for the liberal aspects of European enlightenment. Lutfi faced this duality head on: He believed it essential to embrace parts of the West's enlightenment values and to decolonize and Egyptianize them in order to establish an authentic, indigenous, Egyptian civilization, appropriate for modernity. Israel Gershoni and Molly Bernstein argue that Lutfi successfully engaged with these most difficult challenges, shaping a detailed plan to implement enlightenment in the Egyptian national context.