Culture & The Natural Environment Reviews

Anthropology as a discipline came to Egypt around 1900, as foreign anthropologists reported home on the culture they found. Gradually the intellectual approach was influenced by the functionalist school, stressing that a society consists of interlocking parts. As Egyptians took the lead in anthropology, in the 1930s, the discipline entered into the debate about the need to reform Egyptian society and culture especially in the rural areas, against a general background of functionalism. This approach dominated through the 1960s, when there was a break in Egypt because of the Six-Day War and in world anthropology because of the emergence of new intellectual models. This study traces the evolution of anthropology in Egypt through the stories of its practitioners such as Blackman, Galal, Evans-Pritchard, Hocart, Abbas Ammar, Hamid Ammar, Berque, Abou Zeid, el Hamamsy, Uways, and their contemporaries, showing their challenges and accomplishments.

With its emphasis on the primacy of change, this study arrives at a particularly auspicious moment, as the Middle East continues to be convulsed by the greatest upheavals in generations, which have come to be known as the Arab Spring. Originally prepared as the tenth-anniversary volume of the UNDP’s Arab Human Development Report, Arab Human Development in the Twenty-first Century places empowerment at the center of human development in the Arab world, viewing it not only from the vantage point of a more equitable distribution of economic resources but also of fundamental legal, educational, and political reform. The ten chapters in this book follow closely this political economy framework. They look back at what Arab countries have achieved since the early 2000s and forward to what remains to be done to reach full development. Supported by a wealth of statistical material, they cover the rule of law, the evolution of media, the persistence of corruption, the draining of resources through armed conflict, the dominance and increase of poverty, the environment, and religious education. The concluding chapter attempts an inventory of the world literature and different experiences on democratic transition to explore where the region could be heading. This critical and timely study is indispensable reading to development specialists and to Middle East scholars and students alike, as well as to anyone with an interest in the future trajectory of the region.