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Napoleon in Egypt. Edited by Irene A. Bierman. With an introduction by Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2003. In association with the Gustav E. von Grunembaum Center for Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, 2003. Pp. v, 189. $49.50/£29.95.
This collection of ten essays considers the significance of General Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition to and occupation of Egypt. Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798 after evading the British fleet commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson. He defeated Ottoman and Mamluk forces and established, with varying degrees of success, a new political and economic administration.
Napoleon also campaigned in the Levant before returning to Egypt. In 1799, he left for France to pursue political ambitions and stranded his dwindling army, by then ravaged by war and disease. Residual French forces capitulated to British and Ottoman forces in 1801. The contributors to this book agree the French ephemeral presence had important, if not profound, implications for Egypt and the Middle East.
Nelly Hanna views the expedition as part of a long-term process in the changing relationship between Egypt and Europe. Egypt was a strategic transit entrepôt for the coffee trade between the Hijaz and Europe. By the time the French arrived, however, the coffee trade had collapsed due to Antiguan competition. Furthermore, native textiles faced burgeoning British and European cheap imports.
Geoffrey Symcox agrees with Edward Said that the expedition acted as "the formative moment for the discourse of Orientalism" (p. 13). His essay places the expedition-a "strategic gamble" (p. 26)-in the broader context of France's conflict with Great Britain. The attack...