The exceptional beauty of Egypt’s monuments and landscapes has thrilled visitors for centuries.
From the beaches of the Red Sea Coast to the lush palm groves of Egypt’s oases, from the heritage of the Roman and Coptic periods to the architectural riches that followed the arrival of Islam, from the magnificent tombs and temples of ancient Egypt to medieval souks to Cairo’s bustling energy today, there is just so much to feast on in Egypt.
Featuring 165 color photographs and captions explaining the stories behind each image, Egypt is a stunning visual journey through an astonishing country.
Trevor Naylor is the author of Egypt Inside Out (AUC Press, 2020) and Cairo Inside Out (AUC Press, 2016, hardbound; AUC Press, 2020, paperback) and co-author of A Roving Eye: Head to Toe in Egyptian Arabic Expressions (AUC Press, 2014). He has been a visitor to, and resident of, Egypt since 1986.
Cairo is an exploding modern metropolis of eighteen million people that nevertheless preserves within its heart the finest medieval city in the world, its alleys, mosques, and caravanserais the original setting for the Arabian Nights, whose atmosphere is palpable still for the visitor wandering through its bazaars, while at sunset the Pyramids glow gold against the Western Desert as they have done for one million seven hundred thousand evenings past. The monuments of pharaohs and sultans lie within the city’s reach, making Cairo and its environs an unequaled storehouse of human achievement. In this guide to the largest city in Africa and the political and cultural fulcrum of the Arab world, Michael Haag explores Cairo’s past and present in word and picture, from Saqqara to the Citadel of Saladin, from the ancient synagogue and churches of Old Cairo to the skyscrapers along the Nile, from Khan al-Khalili, the vast bazaar as intricate as inlay work, to the Belle Epoque façades of the downtown streets, and introduces you to the treasures of three great civilizations at the Islamic, Coptic, and Egyptian Antiquities museums. Beautifully illustrated with 150 color photographs, this is a fascinating armchair tour of Cairo in all its variety.
Cairo is a city of splendor and spectacle, long celebrated as much for its warmth and bustling street life as for the legacy of its tumultuous past. Yet for the countless visitors who fall under its spell, the prolonged din of its crowds and traffic can seem overwhelming at times, tempting them out of the city’s open spaces into its shadow light, the cooler, quieter interiors of restaurants, homes, hotels, and terraces. Cairo Inside Out evokes the light and moods of this great metropolis with stunning photographs shot from the city’s indoor havens. We observe it through and from nostalgic haunts, such as Café Riche and the Windsor Hotel, and look out onto its great sights—the Nile, the Red Pyramid at Dahshur, Ibn Tulun mosque—from the most intimate urban interiors, homes, and watersides. For those who may have lived in Cairo, this is a reminder of a city that moves and yet remains wonderfully unchanged. For visitors and residents, this evocative collection, an unabashed homage to Cairo’s persistent color and allure, will inspire them to visit those places once more.
No land on earth has been so comprehensively observed as Egypt, which was attracting awestruck travelers back in the days of Herodotus and Julius Caesar. This rich and varied collection brings the diversity and the continuity of Egypt together to give a picture of this country, its many places, its long history, and its people: the pharoahs, sultans, pilgrims to Sinai, Crusaders, and Napoleon, followed by the Grand Tourists of the eighteenth century and those less grand with Thomas Cook in the nineteenth. The range of voices gathered here is dazzling: an ancient myth from a papyrus next to Naguib Mahfouz’s account of Alexandria, Florence Nightingale describing Abu Simbel side by side with Ahdaf Soueif’s description of Sinai. A description of medieval Cairo by Ibn Jubayr walks hand in hand with one of the modern city by the Egyptian thinker Taha Hussein. Lucie Duff-Gordon sails up the Nile, Edward Lane crawls through a sand-filled temple, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel struggles up the cataract above Aswan.
Lithographs and diaries byDavid Roberts, R.A. Text byFabio Bourbon Photographs byAntonio Attini
David Roberts, one of the most skilled landscape artists of his time, set out for Egypt in 1838, where he made countless sketches of the most remarkable sites and monuments during the course of his eleven-month journey through Egypt, Sinai, and the Levant. Superb lithographs made from his work, first published between 1846 and 1848, are richly reproduced here in resplendent color, along with Roberts’s diary accounts of his travels along the Nile Valley from Alexandria to the fabulous Abu Simbel temples. Each illustration is accompanied by a photograph showing the same view more than 150 years later. Fabio Bourbon’s lucid essay introduces anew this nineteenth-century fine artist and contextualizes his images for the modern reader.
