Napoleon in Egypt

Abstract

Napoleon in Egypt. Edited by Irene A. Bierman. With an introduction by Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2003. In association with Gustav E. von Grunembaum Center for Near Eastern Studies at University of California, Los Angeles, 2003. Pp. v, 189. $49.50/£29.95. This collection of ten essays considers significance of General Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition to and occupation of Egypt. Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798 after evading British fleet commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson. He defeated Ottoman and Mamluk forces and established, with varying degrees of success, a new political and economic administration. Napoleon also campaigned in Levant before returning to Egypt. In 1799, he left for France to pursue political ambitions and stranded his dwindling army, by then ravaged by war and disease. Residual French forces capitulated to British and Ottoman forces in 1801. The contributors to this book agree French ephemeral had important, if not profound, implications for Egypt and Middle East. Nelly Hanna views expedition as part of a long-term process in changing relationship Egypt and Europe. Egypt was a transit entrepot for coffee trade Hijaz and Europe. By French arrived, however, coffee trade had collapsed due to Antiguan competition. Furthermore, native textiles faced burgeoning British and European cheap imports. Geoffrey Symcox agrees with Edward Said that expedition acted as the formative moment for discourse of Orientalism (p. 13). His essay places expedition-a strategic gamble (p. 26)-in broader context of France's conflict with Great Britain. The attack was daring and risky and meant to threaten Britain's land links with India. Although Directory's geopolitical objectives were not attained, French resulted in two particular cultural consequences: (1) founding of Institut d'Egypte, and (2) confrontation Enlightenment and Islam. Stuart Harten provides an exceptional synthesis of Said's thought toward expedition-the enabling project for all subsequent Orientalist enterprises (p. 35). He also injects Henry Laurens's interpretation of ideological foundations of expedition by tracing its roots to discourse of Oriental Despotism' (p. 36). Harten points out that primary contributors of seminal Description de l'Egypte were engineers rather than Orientalist scholars. To Harten, French expedition appropriated Egypt politically and culturally, dispossessing native inhabitants of their very presence (p. 44). Juan R. I. Cole views French as perhaps first in a long line of liberal colonial adventures, of which Vietnam War is most famous in our time (or arguably, American of Iraq). What he calls also serve as binary relationships between Self and Other, civilization and barbarism, liberty and dominance, public and private, male and female, Great Powers diplomacy and local politics (p. 48). Cole uses memoirs to explore these contradictions and constructions. Nairy Hampikian examines mapping of Cairo and describes the drastic changes that took place in Cairo both during and after Napoleonic invasion (p. 70). Hampikian convincingly demonstrates not only that Description represented an Orientalist paradigm, but that its illustrations' efforts to see unseen (p. 74) are valuable for architectural and urban historians. Shmuel Moreh provides an Egyptian view of French invasion. The chief observers were 'Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, Niqula Turk, and Hasan al-'Attar. …