The Nile today plays a crucial role in the economics, politics and cultural life of ten countries and their more than 300 million inhabitants. No other international river basin has a longer, more complex and eventful history than the Nile. In telling the detailed story of the water politics of the Nile valley in the 19th and 20th centuries, social scien-tist Terje Tvedt recounts in details the political history of the Nile during its most revolutionary period. From the construction of the Aswan Dam to Britain’s role in Ethiopian, Sudanese and Egyptian water politics, this thoroughly-researched history casts a fresh eye on the turbulent politics of this era. The colonial period saw sweeping changes in how politicians and scientists conceptualized and made use of water resources. In these pages are major political figures such as Churchill, Mussolini, Eisenhower, Eden, Nasser and Haile Selassie—indicating how much was at stake in the partition of the Nile’s resources. While Tvedt ends his narrative with the Nasser period, he makes clear that the issues involved—the political ecology of a major transnational river basin like the Nile—are still very much in play today.
The River Nile in the Age of the British
Political Ecology and the Quest for Economic Power
Terje Tvedt
464 pp.
10 b/w photographs
15X23cm
ISBN 9789774160462
For sale only in the Middle East
$34.50
Related products
Edward William Lane, 1801–1876
The Life of the Pioneering Egyptologist and Orientalist
Jason ThompsonFew Western scholars of the Middle East have exerted such profound influence as Edward William Lane. Lane’s Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), which has never gone out of print, remains as a highly authoritative study of Middle Eastern society. His annotated translation of the Arabian Nights (1839–41) retains a devoted readership. Lane’s recently recovered and published Description of Egypt (2000) shows that he was a pioneering Egyptologist as well as orientalist. The capstone of his career, the definitive Arabic-English Lexicon (1863–93), is an indispensable reference tool. Yet, despite his extraordinary influence, little was known about Lane and virtually nothing about how he did his work. Now, in the first full-length biography, Lane’s life and accomplishments are examined in full, including his crucial years of field work in Egypt, revealing the life of a great Victorian scholar and presenting a fascinating episode in east–west encounter, interaction, and representation.
...read more
15 May 2010
Hardbound
760 pp.64 illus.
15X23cm
$39.95
Caliph of Cairo
Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, 996–1021
Paul E. WalkerOne night in the year 411/1021, the powerful ruler of the Fatimid empire, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, rode out of the southern gates of Cairo and was never seen again. Was the caliph murdered, or could he have decided to abandon his royal life, wandering off to live alone and anonymous? Whatever the truth, the fact was that al-Hakim had literally vanished into the desert. Yet al-Hakim, though shrouded in mystery, has never been forgotten. To the Druze, he was (and is) God, and his disappearance merely indicated his reversion to non-human form. For Ismailis, al-Hakim was the sixteenth imam, descended from the Prophet, and infallible. Jews and Christians, by contrast, long remembered him as their persecutor, who ordered the destruction of many of their synagogues and churches. Using all the tools of modern scholarship, Paul Walker offers the most balanced and engaging biography yet to be published of this endlessly fascinating individual. To some, al-Hakim was God incarnate, to others an infallible imam, to still others he was a capricious tyrant. This book examines myth and fact, document and opinion, to present the most complete and detailed history yet written of the life and times of one of the medieval Islamic world’s most controversial figures.
...read more
15 December 2012
Paperback
336 pp.15X23cm
$24.95
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
15 December 2012
Paperback
664 pp.131 line drawings
15X23cm
$29.95
Egypt from Alexander to the Copts
An Archaeological and Historical Guide
Edited by Roger S. BagnallDominic W. Rathbone
After its conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 bc, Egypt was ruled for the next 300 years by the Ptolemaic dynasty founded by Ptolemy I, one of Alexander’s generals. With the defeat of Cleopatra VII in 30 bc, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, and later of the Byzantine Empire. For a millennium it was one of the wealthiest, most populous and important lands of the multicultural Mediterranean civilization under Greek and Roman rule. The thousand years from Alexander to the Arab conquest in ad 641 are rich in archaeological interest and well documented by 50,000 papyri in Greek, Egyptian, Latin, and other languages. But travelers and others interested in the remains of this period are ill-served by most guides to Egypt, which concentrate on the pharaonic buildings. This book redresses the balance, with clear and concise descriptions related to documents and historical background that enable us to appreciate the fascinating cities, temples, tombs, villages, churches, and monasteries of the Hellenistic, Roman, and Late Antique periods. Written by a dozen leading specialists and reflecting the latest discoveries and research, it provides an expert visitor’s guide to the principal cities, many off the well-worn tourist paths. It also offers a vivid picture of Egyptian society at differing economic and social levels.
...read more
Paperback
320 pp.100 illus. incl. 25 color
17X24cm
$39.50