This cohesive account of Egypt’s millennia-long past offers readers a sure guide through the sometimes labyrinthine corridors of Egypt’s past, from the mysterious predynastic kingdoms to the nation-state of the twenty-first century. The author addresses central scholarly issues such as how Egyptian history can be treated as a whole and how the west has shaped prevailing images of it, both through direct contact and through the lens of western scholarship. Drawing on current historical scholarship as well as his own research, Jason Thompson has written a remarkable work of synthesis and concision, offering students, travelers, and general readers alike an engaging one-volume narrative of the extraordinarily long course of human history by the Nile. This updated paperback edition contains new material on the 25 January Revolution and the fall of the Mubarak regime.
A History of Egypt
From Earliest Times to the Present
Jason Thompson
412 pp.
80 b/w illus.
15X23cm
ISBN 9789774165276
For sale only in the Middle East
18.95
Also available by this author
Egyptian Encounters
Cairo Papers Vol. 23, No. 3
Edited by Jason ThompsonLooking at encounters of European travelers with Egypt in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this collection of essays focuses on the experience of the less well known travelers and institutions. Contributors include: Lisa Bernasek, Briony Llewellyn, A.J. Mills, Charles Newton, John David Regan, John Rodenbeck, John Ruffle, Sarah Searight, Nicholas Warner. Vol. 23 No. 2
...read more
Paperback
184 pp.15X23cm
19.95
Related products
Ayyubid Cairo
A Topographical Study
Neil D. MacKenzieThis comprehensive study, first published by the AUC Press in 1992 examines the structure of the Ayyubid administration in Cairo and the associated military, religious, and commercial milieux. It goes on to survey in detail the changes in the general layout of Cairo–in defenses, governmental and private buildings, water resources, religious institutions and cemetery areas, and markets and commercial establishments. Click here to download the free PDF.
...read more
11 October 2016
Free e-book
208 pp.3 maps
14.5X23cm
An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians
Edward William LaneIntroduced by Jason Thompson
Few works about the Middle East have exerted such wide and long-lasting influence as Edward William Lane’s An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. First published in 1836, this classic book has never gone out of print, continuously providing material and inspiration for generations of scholars, writers, and travelers, who have praised its comprehensiveness, detail, and perception. Yet the editions in print during most of the twentieth century would not have met Lane’s approval. Lacking parts of Lane’s text and many of his original illustrations (while adding many that were not his), they were based on what should have been ephemeral editions, published long after the author’s death. Meanwhile, the definitive fifth edition of 1860, the result of a quarter century of Lane’s corrections, reconsiderations, and additions, long ago disappeared from bookstore shelves. Now the 1860 edition of Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians is available again, with a useful general introduction by Jason Thompson. Lane’s greatest work enters the twenty-first century in precisely the form that he wanted.
...read more
Paperback
664 pp.131 line drawings
15X23cm
24.95
American Travelers on the Nile
Early U.S. Visitors to Egypt, 1774–1839
Andrew OliverThe Treaty of Ghent signed in 1814, ending the War of 1812, allowed Americans once again to travel abroad. Medical students went to Paris, artists to Rome, academics to Göttingen, and tourists to all European capitals. More intrepid Americans ventured to Athens, to Constantinople, and even to Egypt. Beginning with two eighteenth-century travelers, this book then turns to the 25-year period after 1815 that saw young men from East Coast cities, among them graduates of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, traveling to the lands of the Bible and of the Greek and Latin authors they had first known as teenagers. Naval officers off ships of the Mediterranean squadron visited Cairo to see the pyramids. Two groups went on business, one importing steam-powered rice and cotton mills from New York, the other exporting giraffes from the Kalahari Desert for wild animal shows in New York. Drawing on unpublished letters and diaries together with previously neglected newspaper accounts, as well as a handful of published accounts, this book offers a new look at the early American experience in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean world. More than thirty illustrations complement the stories told by the travelers themselves.
...read more
Hardbound
424 pp.34 color illus.
15X23cm
29.95
Al-Fustat
Its Foundation and Early Urban Development
Wladyslaw B. KubiakAl-Fustat, the original Arab capital of Egypt, was founded in A.D. 642 (A.H.21) around the Roman–Byzantine fortified town of Babylon in what is now Old Cairo. Early records and modern archaeological excavations of the site of al-Fustat have been of great interest to scholars investigating the life and development of medieval Arab cities as well as to those studying the organization and growth of early Arab Egypt. In this comprehensive study, first published by the AUC Press in 1987, Dr. Kubiak synthesizes the evidence from both medieval documentary and narrative sources and twentieth century archaeology to present a detailed history of al-Fustat. In it he traces and examines the geography of the site; the pre-Islamic settlements; the foundation and early development of the city and its demographic and territorial evolution; and the topography of the city and its architecture. Click here to download the free PDF.
...read more
11 October 2016
Free e-book
186 pp.14.5X22.5cm