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Memories of a Revolution: Egypt, 1952, by Khaled Mohi El Din. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1995. xii + 259 pages. Index to p. 273. $29.50
Reviewed by Joel Gordon
The author of these "memories" will be well known to students of modern Egyptian history and politics as a founder of the Free Officers movement, which was part of the junta that toppled King Faruq and instigated the 1952 Nasirist revolution. Dubbed the "Red Major" for his political leanings, Khalid Mohi El Din is also the last member of President Jamal Abd al-Nasir's inner circle to remain politically active, still heading the leftist Tajammu' Party. Often an opponent of political institutions that emerged from the revolution he helped to foster, Mohi El Din's voice is powerful and intriguing.
This book is an adapted translation of Mohi El Din's Arabic memoirs, Wa al-An Atakallam (And Now I Speak, 1992). The claim behind the original title was somewhat overstated. In the early 1980s, when participants from all factions produced personal narratives of the revolution, Mohi El Din abstained. Yet, unlike several comrades who maintained strict silence, he frequently published short accounts of particular incidents, often in his party's paper, AI-Ahali. He also was always willing to meet with scholars to...