Monarchy and Modernity in Egypt: Politics, Islam and Neo-Colonialism Between the Wars

摘要

Although the title of this book indicates a twenty-year timeframe, the first page asserts that the actual focus-owing to the limits of Egyptian archival materials available to researchers in the 1990s-is mostly on the years 1919-1927, a period described by the author as 'pivotal' (p. 1). This immediately prompts two questions. Firstly, for a 2013 publication, have any additional materials been released since the 1990s? And, secondly, what makes this particular period in question so important? An answer to the first question is not apparent, but may lie in the provenance of this book as a School of Oriental and African Studies doctoral thesis from 1998 entitled 'The Egyptian Revolution: Politics and the Egyptian Nation 1919-1926'. As for the second question, Whidden-still apparently addressing the more limited timeframe given on the book's first page, rather than the period 'between the wars' (from the book's title) -observes that these years were 'defined by the "revolution" (thawra) of 1919 and the constitutional and electoral processes that followed' (p. 3). While the significance of 1927 as an end date (as per the periodization given on page 1) or 1939 (as per the title and page 8) is never effectively explained in the introduction, the thrust of the book's subject matter is clearly stated: the so-called 'liberal constitution' of 1923 was grafted on to an Egyptian political landscape in which the key indigenous actors only accepted it as a temporary expedient-consequently, a struggle almost immediately ensued between liberals, nationalists, and monarchists aimed at rewriting the constitution. It was, observes Whidden, a struggle over the culture of modernity in Egypt. This apparent pedantry about periodization is important because Monarchy and Modernity in Egypt is a much better book on the internal political disputes of the 1920s than it is on the 1930s.