Content area
Full Text
The Making of an Egyptian Arab Nationalist: The Early Years of Azzam Pasha, 1893-1936 By Ralph Coury Reading - Ithaca Pmss, 1998
The career of Abd al-Rahman Azzam, the premier Arab nationalist diplomat of his day, in many ways reflected the trials and tribulations of his generation. Born in an Egyptian village south of Cairo to well-off parents of "good old Arab stock" (according to a British official in 1923), Azzam's intellectual journey took him from the patriotism of Mustafa Kamil's Watani party to, ultimately, the Arab League, which he served as secretary-general from its inception in 1945 until 1952. Well before his most famous posting, he had become, argues Coury in this meticulously researched intellectual biography, an "Egyptian Arab nationalist."
This designation, as Coury reminds us, should not be taken for granted. If nationalism is "imagined," nationalists are "made"-and the process of "becoming" is rarely a simple one, particularly when that nationalism is rooted in seemingly contradictory impulses. Coury traces Azzam's early journey in both the context of the "givens" (pp.15-53)-Azzam's socioeconomic upbringing, cultural and educational...