“Alexandria is still alive and alters even when one tries to sum her up . . . . Only the climate, only the north wind and the sea remain as pure as when Menelaus, the first visitor, landed three thousand years ago.” In the autumn of 1915, in a “slightly heroic mood”, E.M. Forster arrived in Alexandria, full of lofty ideals as a volunteer for the Red Cross. Yet most of his time was spent exploring “the magic, antiquity and complexity” of the place in order to cope with living in what he saw as a “funk-hole.” With a novelist’s pen, he brings to life the fabled, romantic city of Alexander the Great, capital of Greco-Roman Egypt, beacon of light and culture symbolized by the Pharos, where the doomed love affair of Antony and Cleopatra was played out and the greatest library the world has ever known was built. Threading three thousand years of history with vibrant strands of literature and punctuating the narrative with his own experiences, Forster immortalized Alexandria, painting an incomparable portrait of the great city and, inadvertently, himself.
Alexandria
A History and a Guide
E.M. Forster
Introduction byLawrence Durrell
320 pp.
12.5X20cm
ISBN 9789774164644
For sale only in the Middle East
19.95
Related products
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
From Cairo to Baghdad
British Travelers in Arabia
James CantonUntil the 1880s, British travelers to Arabia were for the most part wealthy dilettantes who could fund their travels from private means. With the advent of an imperial presence in the region, as the British seized power in Egypt, the very nature of travel to the Middle East changed. Suddenly, ordinary men and women found themselves visiting the region as British influence increased. Missionaries, soldiers, and spies as well as tourists and explorers started to visit the area, creating an even bigger supply of writers, and market for their books. In this elegantly crafted book, James Canton examines over one hundred primary sources, from forgotten gems to the classics of T.E. lawrence, Thesiger, and Philby. He analyzes the relationship between empire and author, showing how the one influenced the other, leading to a vast array of texts that might never have been produced had it not been for the ambitions of imperial Britain.
...read more
Hardbound
320 pp.5 b/w illus.
15X23cm
20.00
Artisan Entrepreneurs in Cairo and Early Modern Capitalism 1600–1800
Nelly HannaWhile historians have mined archives and court documents to create a picture of the commercial activities, networks, and infrastructure of merchants in Egypt prior to its incorporation into the European capitalist economy, few have documented a similar picture of the artisans and craftspeople. Artisans outnumbered merchants and their economic weight was considerable, yet details about their lives, the way they carried out their work, and their role or position in the economy is largely unknown. Nelly Hanna seeks to redress this gap by locating and exploring the role of artisans in the historical process. These artisans developed a variety of capitalist practices, both as individuals and collectively in their guilds. Hanna details how they defied the constraints of the guilds and actively engaged in the markets of Europe, demonstrating how Egyptian artisan production was able to compete and survive in a landscape of growing European trade. Deftly synthesizing a wide range of economic and historical theory, Hanna reinvigorates the current scholarship on early Ottoman history and provides a persuasive challenge to the largely shallow perception of artisans’ role in Egypt’s economy.
...read more
Hardbound
256 pp.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