Product Description
Completely updated and revised for this new edition, our unique electronic book on DVD-ROM has an amazing collection of the finest federal documents and resources about Egypt, providing encyclopedic coverage of all aspects of the country. This disc provides a truly fantastic reference source, with over one hundred thousand pages reproduced in Adobe Acrobat format! Advanced search and indexing features are built into our reproduction, providing a complete full-text index. This enables the user to search all the files on the disk at one time for words or phrases using just one search command.This incredible and comprehensive series on the countries of the world contains material from the State Department, Department of Defense, White House, and cabinet agencies including Agriculture, Energy, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.There is complete information about geography, people, government, the economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues.In addition to the nation-specific material, as a bonus we have included a huge collection of reports and documents about every country on the globe, with 271 nations, dependent areas, and other entities identified by the Central Intelligence Agency. We have full reproductions of the CIA Factbook through the latest edition, with archival versions dating back to 2000. The CIA World Factbook is considered an invaluable "world encyclopedia" reference book.From the Library of Congress, we reproduce an outstanding set of “country studies” covering subjects such as geography, society, economy, transportation and communications, government and politics, and national security. Supplemental material accompanying the Country Profiles includes photographs, tables, charts, graphs, and maps. Representative subheadings for Geography include Physical Environment, Topography, Climate, and Environmental Issues; subheadings for Society sections include Historical Setting, specific Historical periods, Society and its Environment, Geography, Population, Language, Structure of Society, Ethnic Groups, Religion and Culture, Rural Life, Migration, Urban Life, Architecture, The Arts, Education, and Social Dynamics; and subheadings for Economy sections include Growth and Structure, Role of Government, Agriculture, Industry, Infrastructure, and Foreign Economic Relations.From the State Department, we reproduce important regional affairs material, covering Africa, East Asia, Pacific, Europe, Eurasia, Near East, South Asia, and the Western Hemisphere. There is information on country offices, chiefs of mission, diplomats, and foreign embassies in America.This incredible DVD-ROM is packed with over 170,000 pages reproduced using Adobe Acrobat PDF software - allowing direct viewing on Windows and Macintosh systems. The Acrobat cataloging technology adds enormous value and uncommon functionality to this impressive collection of government documents and material.Our news and educational CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs are privately compiled collections of official public domain U.S. government files and documents - they are not produced by the federal government. They are designed to provide a convenient user-friendly reference work, utilizing the benefits of the Adobe Acrobat format to uniformly present thousands of pages that can be rapidly reviewed, searched by finding specific words, or printed without untold hours of tedious research and downloading. Vast archives of important public domain government information that might otherwise remain inaccessible are available for instant review no matter where you are. This book-on-a-disc format makes a great reference work and educational tool. There is no other reference that is as fast, convenient, comprehensive, thoroughly researched, and portable - everything you need to know, from the federal sources you trust.This DVD-ROM disc is for use in a computer DVD drive. The files can be accessed from the File E ... Read more

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Shrouded in mystery, the Islamic presence in the Middle East evokes longstanding Western fears of terrorism and holy war. Our media have consistently focused on these extremes of Islam, overlooking a quiet yet pervasive religious movement that is now transforming the nation of Egypt. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, No God But God opens up previously inaccessible segments of Egyptian society--from the universities and professional sectors to the streets--to illustrate the deep penetration of "Popular Islamic" influence. Abdo provides a firsthand account of this peaceful movement, allowing its moderate leaders, street preachers, scholars, doctors, lawyers, men and women of all social classes to speak for themselves. Challenging Western stereotypes, she finds that this growing number of Islamists do not seek the violent overthrow of the government or a return to a medieval age. Instead, they believe their religious values are compatible with the demands of the modern world. They are working within and beyond the secular framework of the nation to gradually create a new society based on Islamic principles. Abdo narrates fascinating accounts of their methods and successes. Today, for example, university students meet in underground unions, despite a state ban.In addition, sheikhs have recently used their new legislative power to censor books and movies deemed to violate religious values. Both fascinating and unsettling, Abdo's findings identify a grassroots model for transforming a secular nation-state to an Islamic social order that will likely inspire other Muslim nations. This model cannot be ignored, for it will soon help organized Islamists to undermine secular control of Egypt and potentially jeopardize Western interests in the Arab world.Amazon.com Review
In a book of first-rate investigative reporting, Geneive Abdouncovers the hidden side of Egypt's so-called Islamic threat. The Arabworld's only secular state, Egypt is the West's trophy in the area'spower politics, yet insurgent Islamism has been a constant threat to thisstatus. While the West and Egypt's own government have focused onthe importance of exterminating Islamic militants, a quiet revolution hastransformed the general population. Abdo, news correspondent forBritish publications, dons her veil and interviews the varying faces ofEgypt's newly devout Muslims. By the time Abdo has traipsed fromCairo slums to elite college campuses, from influential professionalorganizations to a den of militant activities, it is clear to anyonewilling to see that Islamic organizations have been good to the majority ofEgyptians, who have been locked out of Egypt's corrupt government.Yet Abdo also questions the implications of Islam as a political solution,and the answers can be disturbing. With Egypt viewed as a vanguard ofthe Middle East, No God but God cannot be ignored. --BrianBruya ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Political pornography
Sometimes, a single sentence tells you everything you need to know about a book, particularly if it is a really lousy book. That is the case with Geneive Abdo's "No God but God." Here is the sentence:

"However, it must be noted that a Christian ruler by nature is illegitimate under Islam, and the ulama, in theory the religious representation of society, had a sacred duty to overthrow him."

"Him" is Napoleon. Abdo claims to have been educated at Harvard and Princeton. I don't know what kind of crap they teach there, but Napoleon was -- as everybody else knows -- no Christian. He was the most famous freethinker in the world, and the government that sent him to Egypt was not a Christian government but a savagely anti-Christian one.

Abdo is also capable of writing this spectacularly tin-eared sentence:

"The figures leading the (Islamist) revival have matured since their forefathers led a crusade to oust the British . . ."

This might be the stupidest book ever issued by Oxford University Press in its five-plus centuries.

But it is worse than stupid. It is dishonest.

Before getting to that, consider Abdo's thesis: That Egypt is (or was in the 1990s when she was there) undergoing a bottom-up revivification of Islam, which is the greatest threat to the secular regime and also "Egypt's only hope for a brighter future."

The first part is largely true, the second part largely nuts. But in furtherance of her thesis, Abdo splits Egyptian Muslim activists into two camps: the violent militants, associated with Gama'a Islamiyya; and the moderate Muslim Brotherhood.

Her goal, she says, is to allow the partisans to speak to the West in their own words, although she offers no more than sound bites from them.

The key point, though, is that the Brotherhood is "moderate" because it "rejected violence" in the early 1980s, and the violence-prone Gema'a, although it achieved its greatest body counts at the time she was "reporting"-- as a newspaperman, I write that with the greatest distaste -- from Egypt, had shot its bolt.

This is dishonest -- or, possibly, just another example of Abdo's breathtaking stupidity and ignorance -- on three levels:

1. The Muslim Brotherhood has not rejected violence toward Jews. There's this thing now called the Internet -- all the kids are talking about it -- and you can dial up the texts of Friday sermons from around the Muslim world, including Egypt, from the comfort of your easy chair. The week I read Abdo's chapter about the moderation of the Brotherhood, the sermon from the chief clergyman at Azhar, Islam's premier intellectual center, was a call to Muslims to murder Jewish children.

2. The Muslim Brotherhood has not rejected violence toward the secular Egyptian state, it has only called off attacks because they were judged to be too weak to have any effect. The Brotherhood is still dedicated to overthrowing the state and replacing it with a theocracy. No doubt, if blowing up pilgrims and murdering cabinet ministers looks like a good bet, they'll go back to that. In any case, if they get control of the state, we can bet on violence against non-Muslims. Ask the Copts.

3.The Brotherhood is immoral on its own terms, since it was devoted to violence for as long as it believed violence would achieve its politicoreligious goals. That interlude lasted 50 years.

Every page of this book is riddled with obfuscation, but I will mention just one other important point.

Abdo contends that the Islamic revival is not a mere throwback to medieval savagery, because, according to her, the moderate Islamists have decided to accommodate "modernity" within an Islamic conception of social justice.

Now, modernity could be defined in many ways, but although this is a central concept in her book, she does not bother to define it in any way.

One definition would be that, compared with medieval obscurantism, the modern person is open to new streams of information and new ways of interpreting it.

However, resurgent Egyptian Islam is antimodern, in that -- as her informants say over and over -- every choice must be made by reference to the Koran and the hadith.

Nor is there any other indication anywhere in the book to show that Egyptian Muslims are embracing some otherdescription of modernity.

"No God but God" was published in 2000, bad timing, and Oxford has since remaindered it, which would seem an odd business decision at a time when the market for books about political Islam is hot. But there was that little intervening incident in September 2001.

"No God but God" is a worthless piece of political pornography as a book, but it is valuable as a record of a mindset that still exists in some quarters; and, for journalists, a horrible example of the worst of their craft.

Not as good as some claim
In a sense it is a invaluable book,yet this is more because of the poverty of the field of study,than because of her journalistic skills and systemizing capacity.I found these to be rather weak,but in comparison to the 1000s of terrible books on this subject,I might recommend it.

Geneive Abdo has written a fabulous book
After laboring through Mary Anne Weaver's thinly reported Portrait of Egypt I was starting to think that the Ikhwan and Gama'at movements were impossible to report on -- a special challenge in a country where the absence of authoritative sources and straightforward government-sourced information makes reporting on ordinary events a challenge.

Yet Geneive Abdo has succeeded brilliantly.Perhaps her Arabic fluency made the decisive difference, although to read the book is to see the many difficulties she faced in getting her subjects to speak.Perhaps she is just very persistent.Her comments about dealing with the Egyptian bureaucracy alone are worth the price of the book.The book is very readable but also highly detailed and carefully footnoted.

Definitely worth a look.I would pass on Weaver's A Portrait of Egypt, however.

A book well-written
As an Egyptian who came to America I was amazed by an American who had such a clear view and analysis of what is going in Egypt, and I hope many American and non-Egyptians would read her book. She tried (with a great success) to let her readers be "Egyptians" in their view to what is happening in their country. Her best conclusion, and which she, intelligently, leaves to the reader to conclude, is that a grassroots solution is always much more effective (and democratic) than an imposed solution (where the solution here is having an Islamic society)

Very impressive, but biased
Abdo's work is very impressive and timely. While Abdo has made clear a clear distinction between Orthodox and militant Islam, she seem to have been completely unreceptive to other genuine forms of Islam such as Sufism or moderate Islam. As such, she has adopted a narrow view of Islam, that of Orthodox Islam or Brotherhood's Islam and saw all others as either secularists or militant.

The Jest of Abdo's findings of the non violent nature of the vast majority of Fundamentalist or Orthodox Moslems was very well presented in her first chapter. Her analysis of the multitude of educated and affluent women willingly taking up the veil was enlightening.

Most fascinating was Abdo's contrast of the situation in Iran to that of Egypt, and how the non-political social Islamic movement in Egypt has produced a more religious society than the Political imposed from above Islam of Iran

Most disappointing is Abdo's failure to represent the alternate pious views of Islam in Egypt, views that accept the religion but see a separation between Government and religion. Such as separation, contrary to Abdo's reading of history is more than the norm of an Egypt that had separate roles for the Sultan, and the Caliph for centuries ... Read more

Product Description
The Copts of Egypt are the largest Christian minority in the Middle East. In recent years they have often been victims of persecution and violence at the hands of the Muslim majority. This volume is the first full study of Coptic Christians in contemporary Egypt. Hasan begins by looking at how the Coptic generation of the 1940s and 1950s remembered, recovered, and invented the ancient history of Christianity in Egypt in order to weld the Copts into a unified nation. The book then focuses on the period beginning with the consecration of Pope Shenuda in 1971. During this revival period the church took over much of the responsibility for the welfare of the Coptic community. The leaders of the revival, she shows, have nurtured a potent and distinctive religious culture with a sense of communal pride and identity despite its hostile surrounding environment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Sunday School Movement and Its Legacy
The unfortunately acrimonious title of Hasan's work should not detract from the genuinely sound and insightful analysis of the national and church politics of Coptic identity in 20th century Egypt.This is a genuinely unique work that should be read by every serious student of the Mid East.

The essential thesis of this rests on the assertion that in Coptic experience, traditional and church hierarchy proved to be dynamic resources for modernizing the community.Such an assertion is highly counter-intuitive, but Hasan demonstrates with seemingly effortless skill just how well this paradigm fits the Coptic experience.For her, Coptic modernity appears as both a competitor with the modernization project of the Egyptian state and an Egyptian manifestation of the turn-of-the-century politicization of ethnic identities.

This book almost entirely focuses on the founding generation of the Sunday School Movement, which took the reigns of public church leadership vis-à-vis the state from the rich, westernized elites whose influence the Free Officer coup destroyed, and how the subsequent generation had to and continues to learn how to negotiate its legacies, rivalries and politics.Here, the perspicacity concerning Church and lay politics becomes demonstrably profound-exhibiting a level of familiarity only made possible by years of experience.Her insights in this regard are perhaps the most valuable.

Moreover, controversial topics are addressed with unflinching transparency.Thus, neither does she neglect to address pressing issues of religious discrimination, disenfranchisement and marginalization facing the Copts in an increasingly Islamicized Egypt, nor intra-ecclesiastical problems such as the sometimes intractable authoritarianism of the church clerisy, nor the often immiserated position of women, etc.

Historically sound, realistic study
Hasan provides a unique study in this book, one which bases its analysis in solid historical research and first-hand experience with the major players of the contemporary Coptic milieu.She is sympathetic while realistic, clear but nuanced.While acknowledging the challenges facing the Coptic community, she refuses to place it within a "victim mentality," instead characterizing it as an active, deliberate, and evolving body within the realities of modern Egyptian politics and society.Nicely written, exhaustively researched, and fairly presented- all the elements of solid historical writing which is both scholarly and relevant. ... Read more

Product Description
As the Arab states come to grips with new realities in the Middle East - the shifts in political and economic power in the region, the growing ascendency of fundamentalist Islam over Nationalist and pan-Arab ideologies of the past and the changing dynamics of the Palestinian problem - the course that Mubarak charts for Egypt has become a factor of key importance. In this book, a career Foreign Service officer examines the changes that are taking place in Egyptian attitudes and policies toward the Arab world from three perspectives - the ways in which Egypt pursued its regional interests under Nasser and Sadat, the policy constraints imposed by political, economic and social forces within Egypt, and the dynamics of Egyptian-Arab relations since the October War. ... Read more

Product Description

For the last several decades an influential group of Egyptian scholars and public intellectuals has been having a profound effect in the Islamic world. Raymond Baker offers a compelling portrait of these New Islamists--Islamic scholars, lawyers, judges, and journalists who provide the moral and intellectual foundations for a more fully realized Islamic community, open to the world and with full rights of active citizenship for women and non-Muslims.

The New Islamists have a record of constructive engagement in Egyptian public life, balanced by an unequivocal critique of the excesses of Islamist extremists. Baker shows how the New Islamists are translating their thinking into action in education and the arts, economics and social life, and politics and foreign relations despite an authoritarian political environment. For the first time, Baker allows us to hear in context the most important New Islamist voices, including Muhammad al Ghazzaly, Kamal Abul Magd, Muhammad Selim al Awa, Fahmy Huwaidy, Tareq al Bishry, and Yusuf al Qaradawy--regarded by some as the most influential Islamic scholar in the world today. A potentially transformative force in global Islam, the New Islamists define Islam as a civilization that engages others and searches for common ground through shared values such as justice, peace, human rights, and democracy.

Islam without Fear is an impressive achievement that contributes to the understanding of Islam in general and the possibilities of a centrist Islamist politics in particular.

Customer Reviews (7)

Filling a Critical Gap in the Contemporary Debate
Often in contemporary political discourse about Islam and Islamist movements, one hears either that there is no such thing as moderate Islamism, or that if there are any moderates they are marginal and insignificant.Surely, the thinking seems to go, if there were any moderate Islamists we would have heard of them by now.Professor Baker's book undercuts this conventional wisdom, demonstrating that the mainstream of contemporary Islamism discourse is in fact the moderate Wassatteyya trend.However, his challenge to the prevailing wisdom on the subject is not merely an empirical one, but a conceptual one as well.On the most basic level, what are we to make of non-Western ideologues endorsing commitments we take to have a Western provenance?And more importantly, how is the term "moderate" to be used in characterizing Islamist discourse?Does being moderate mean endorsing American foreign policy in the Middle East across the board?This is the position of the various RAND Corporation studies on the subject; there are no "moderate Islamists," only scattered pockets of "moderate Muslims" whom the US government ought to fund and organize to maximize their impact.If Baker is right, however, "moderate" should have a more dynamic, more contextual significance.Qaradawi for one has not absolutely rejected suicide bombing, female circumcision, or domestic violence, arguing instead that they can be legitimate under exceptional and abnormal conditions.Within our own political debates, this would obviously count as an extreme point of view; within Islamist discourse it counts as center-right.If our aim is to find opinion leaders in the Middle East who are on the same page with us about everything already, then we might end up with a fairly restricted set of moderates on our map (although, if Baker and Bruce Rutherford are right, even in that case it would be a bigger and more mainstream set than is typically thought).If, on the other hand, our aim is to open a dialogue, leveraging what points of agreement we already have so as to work towards convergence on the rest, then Baker's classification is the right one to use.Whichever tack one ends up taking, this book remains the best point of entry to the topic.

Brilliant and timely, a must-read
This highly readable and highly relevant book has given me an entirely new perspective on politics in the Middle East. Anyone concerned by the results in Iraq of our current understanding of the Middle East will see in this book the road map to another way.Baker provides perhaps the most balanced, well-informed, and optimistic perspective on Islamist politics available today. Whether you consider yourself conservative, liberal, or right down the middle, this book is a must-read.

No Objectivity in This Cheerleading of Islamicists
Daniel Pipes has said that Baker's books on the Abdel Nasser and Sadat eras, 1954-81, bespeak his familiarity with the Egyptian political scene; as he puts it, he has made "a voyage to an intellectual, cultural, and moral world into which I was not born but where I no longer feel a stranger." Islam without Fear clearly shows the strengths and weaknesses of this voyage. On the plus side, Baker not only knows his topic but has a feel for the Egyptian scene, both Islamist and otherwise. His survey of the "New Islamists"--a group of important Egyptians (such as Kamal Abul Magd, Muhammad Selim al-Awa, Tareq al-Bishry, Muhammad al-Ghazzaly, Fahmy Huwaidy, and Yusuf al-Qaradawy) at the vanguard of Islamist ideological development--is informed, smart, and supple. He documents their thinking, assesses their achievements and failings, and points to their significance.

On the minus side, Baker, professor of international politics at Trinity College, Hartford, has lost any sense of objectivity and instead adopted the outlook of his New Islamist subjects, for whom he serves as an English-language cheerleader. Rehashing the silly and discredited trope distinguishing between moderate and extreme Islamists, he treats the leading lights of the world's most vibrant totalitarian movement with an overt and embarrassing enthusiasm (centrist, positive, impressive, human, and humane are adjectives describing them that appear in just the book's first five pages). Worse, the study contains an element of deception, a hiding of problems, symbolized by Baker's long account of a headline-making debate in January 1992 between Qaradawy and an arch-secularist named Farag Foda but his omission that this exchange contributed directly to the assassination of Foda five months later by an Islamist terrorist.

Liberals in Egypt are the Real Force
It is true that the Islamist scholars have taken over the arena in Egypt; however this is a result of the governmental media, which sees in liberals a threat to its own authority.

Liberals in Egypt are in part, those who stood on Sadat's side when he started a number of reforms in the late 70s of the last century. They do have a practical view for Egypt. They are the grandsons of those who ruled Egypt in the first half of the 20th century.

In Egypt, as in many other countries of the third world, a President comes to ruin the picture of the President before him. Nasser did that with Naguib. Sadat did that with Nasser. Mubarak won't build a new tradition of course, since he is a clerk more than a politician!

Since the start of his rule, Mubarak brought back Nasser's second line of men in. Among them was Safwat ElSherif, (Information Minister for more than 22 years thereafter), Mufeed Shehab (High Education Minister for about 10 years and one of those who Sadat detained in the 15th of May reform revolution of 1971, as he called it) and Kamal El-Shazli (Minister of the affairs of the People's Assembly for many years and the most hated man in Egypt today).

These men didn't give a chance for liberals to speak out. They draw the government's picture, as if it was the only liberal force in the country. As if the government is the only one which wants relations with Israel. As if the government is the only one which can have relations with the USA and the West.

By silencing their voices, the government guarantees that it is the only one which can have relations with the outside, be it the USA, the rest of the West, or even Israel. The government doesn't want to have a competitor in its relations towards the outside. If outsiders see it that way, then it would be an ultimate success for her.

Sadat's legacy had to be buried down, and Mubarak was to be branded the man who did everything, even the Yom Kippur war!!!!

At the time, the USA maybe knew that, but its interest went on with Mubarak and his corrupt regime. However, now things have changed, and the USA knows where the liberals are, and she knows that they are buried by the government and are ignored from speaking out and saying what hey have to say.

Islamists are a Ghost used by the government, and were given a way by it. Many of the Islamist intellectuals mentioned in the book were given way to media by the government "controlled media". They would have never been the lions of the arena unless there was government support.

Therefore, today, "Kefaya" which is a civil society movement and made up mostly of the Islamists, Nasserites and Leftists, is not that dangerous for the government, but actually very helpful. Also, the latest clashes in Alexandria between Muslims and Christians, over a play said to be "against Islam", might be instigated by the government itself, so that it sends Washington a message indicating that it fights extremist Muslims while it is so moderate! Thanks God, since Washington is not that stupid as the Egyptian government thinks!
The Egyptian government is making everything possible to survive the un-survivable. It is in panic and is taking the wrong decisions in the wrong time.

Liberals are awaiting a chance to come out. They know that about 40 million "silent majority" are supporting Liberalism.

Many in the West have been deceived, like the author here, by just observing the cream of the Cake. Many have said that people in Egypt were happy that Sadat was killed, by just observing what they see, without any added effort to see what is hidden within society.

Islamists might take over for a while till people who vote (and this will not take long) will see what these people will do. Egypt is not ready to be another Taliban. Most people in Egypt are liberals, even the poor, like Peasants, who r not ready to give up their profit, to the backward brothers.

A hagiography of a movement
A strange book.As a project of relating the ideas of Egyptian "New Islamists" as they would like themselves presented, the book does a very good job.But on the other hand, it is completely uncritical, and provides very little of the context for the positions described.Baker's unrelenting praise of the New Islamists gets wearying after a while, especially as most often the "New Islamist" positions are little more than warmed-over Islamic modernism, internal tensions and superficialities included.Perhaps the New Islamists are a welcome contrast to the more mindless, violent variety of Egyptian Islamist more familiar from the media.It is, however, too much of a stretch to portray these garden variety of cultural conservatives part of an intellectually sophisticated movement with liberal attitudes. ... Read more

Product Description
Reviews the direction which Egyptian politics has taken since the end of the Second World War. It deals with the end of the old regime in 1952, covers the period of Gamul Abdul Nasser and his ideology and goes on to cover Anwar Sadat's ideology and how it has affected his country and his people. ... Read more

Product Description
An Arab view of a turning point in modern history. Napoleon's conquest of Egypt in 1798 was the first contact between a Western power with imperial goals and an "ancien regime" of an African society. This chronicle offers a combination of historical narration and reflection combined with daily observations about the atmosphere in Cairo and the mood among the local population. The author resents the French invasion, ridicules their claim to be a defender of the faith, rejects their belief in liberty and equality, despises their lack of morality and personal hygiene, but approves their efficiency, common loyalty and co-operation, and wonders at their technical and scholarly abilities. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

it's a journal, not a book
there are so many other books that cover this topic in a more enjoyable and comprehensive way.not recommended.

A View From the Other Side
Oh, would some Power the gift give us,
To see ourselves as others see us;
It would from many a blunder
And foolish notion free us -- Robert Burns

We have a lot of histories of Napoleon in Egypt. Even more of the naval battle where Nelson came in. Here is a view of the invasion of Egypt left from the Egyptian side. His comments are rather surprising. It was very clear that the French military machine was vastly superior to the military forces then in Egypt. The French knowledge, science, technology was likewise admired by Al-Jabarti. On the other hand their claim to be the defender of the faith is obviously ridiculous, even though they did have a translation of the Koran.

This particular edition of the book has been expanded in honor of Al-Jabarti's 250th birthday. The translation is by Shmuel Moreh of the Hebrew University, andRobert L. Tignor provides an introduction giving an overview of the events.

A fateful meeting of East and West
The Chronicle of Al-Jabarti is an account of the first six months ofNapoleon' s invasion and occupation of Egypt 1798.Sheikh 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Jabarti was an astronomer at Al-Azhar.As a member of the 'Ulama, Napoleon appointed him to the Diwan, or Grand Council, through which the French had hoped to govern Egypt. This allowed Al-Jabarti to compile a detailed chronicle of the French organization of administrative matters, the battles and the flight of the Mamluks to Upper Egypt and the Revolt of Cairo.Al-Jabarti left a valuable record of his impressions of the French in terms of their character and learning.With the possible exception of the very protracted Spanish Reconquista which ended with the fall of Granada in 1492, it had not been since the Crusades that a 'Western' power had attempted an invasion of a Muslim land on the scale and scope of Napoleon.The French General had also brought to Egypt an army ofscholars from L' Academie whose purpose it was to study and record all possible aspects of interest, while also showing off European science and learning.Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne (Napoleon's private secretary) included in his Memoirs a brief account of the invasion of Egypt .A reading of both The Chronicle and the Memoirs provides an interesting insight as to how the Arabs and the French saw each other. ... Read more

Product Description
This book explores the concept of citizenship in Egypt and identifies the forces that have institutionally controlled women since the turn of the twentieth century. How is citizenship defined in Egypt and by whom? Selma Botman seeks to understand how political culture in Egypt has developed, how women have asserted themselves in public life, and how they have been limited and sometimes excluded from the political process. Botman demonstrates that women's social inferiority derives from law and custom, but points out that slow industrialization contributes to inequality in the workplace. She considers three areas of interaction in Egypt: the social organization of power, the ideological and institutional means of controlling women sexually, and the sexual division of labor. These topics highlight the complexity and interdependence of men's and women's activities and offer insight into the nature of political organization, the sources of political power, and the implications of hierarchical domination. In this decade-by-decade survey beginning with Egypt's independence from British rule, Botman shows how women's identity was constrained by social and political patriarchal structures. Even during Egypt's period of nation-building, when women won the right to vote, the responsibilities of housekeeping and child-rearing were still the strict province of women. Tracing an entrenched system of male hegemony-in the household and in the state-this study illustrates the changing yet ever restricted role of women in Egyptian society. Up to the present rise of Islamic fundamentalism, where gender inequality continues, Botman looks to the movement for Egyptian democratization as the best hope for gender equality in Egypt. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Where is the cover art?
You should all go out and buy this book, or sit in your office and buy it online if you want.But where is the cover art?I really liked the picture on the cover, it's black and white and it's like a mass movement.Well, do not judge a book only by its cover (or lack thereof).You should buy this book; despite the amazon oversight of cover art, the text is way better than the image on the front.

pertinant
I learned a lot about the current situation in the mid-east when I read this for class.It is so interesting to see a devout country that doesn't do the whole Jihad thing against America.I would recommend this book RIGHT NOW.you should get it and learn about the REAL situation there.great stuff.

quite useful resource
I personally found this book very useful in understanding the status of women in Egypt, but also the entire Mid-East.I was able to see that female discrimination did not end in Afghanistan with the Taliban.This book shed a light on an under-represented area of social studies (in my opinion).I would recommend it fully.

women's roles in a male world
I read this book to better my understanding of issues in the Middle East, and more specificly, women in the Middle East.I am an outright feminist and, as an independent project, I am researching the role of women in manydifferent locations of the world.One location is the Middle East, andthis book provided me with a lot of background infromation and gave mespecific examples that I could site in my papper.A VERY useful tool forall Middle Eastern historians and Women's studies majors. ... Read more

Product Description
Gilles Kepel takes us into the world of the students, professionals, workers, and unemployed who are caught up in the Islamic movements of our day. Events that have riveted world attention--the World Trade Center bombing, assassinations in Beirut, the attempt on the life of the Pope, the assassination of Sadat--are illuminated by this penetrating study which surveys the background of the Islamist movement beginning with the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A great piece of research
This book was written over 20 years ago, long before anyone focused on the possible consequences of a growing menace to humanity in the guise of Islamic fanatics calling the masses back to the founding tenants of Islam. Kepel lived in Egypt and spent a lot of time researching and reading what was happening in the 70's and 80's as well as examining the causes and consequences of Islamic calls to jihad and having Muslims continue their conquest of the earth in the name of Allah.
This book shows how Egypt's experiment with socialism resulted in a corrupt, dishonest, and totally failed state. Kepel points out the costs of this experiment by showing that the state created a horrific perfect storm, using the establishment of Israel as the ultimate bogeyman to deflect the masses attention away from the failures of socialism. Essentially the Egyptians were no different than the other kleptocracies in the Middle East and held the hand puppet of Israel as the focus of attention while the other hand deprived the general population of any semblance of a decent standard of living. Kepel's insights into the assassination of Sadat because of his overtures to Israel were most enlightening, essentially showing that Sadat was killed by forces he had nourished with years of hatred toward modernity. Carter and his advisors probably still do not understand to this day what damage they did in the Camp David accords when Sadat traded Soviet handouts for American ones. The view held by the vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East of the American-Zionist plot to overtake the Middle East was cemented and fermented in the accord. It took another generation for it to come to fruition in 9/11, but it all started there. Kepel was not aware of Carter's funding of the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan in the 70's at the same time so is not able to link the beginnings of bin Laden's lunatic fringe groups as well. Another interesting observation by Kepel, which is now becoming more apparent is that the Islamic social code of the separation of the sexes lends itself to sexual frustration on the part of the massive numbers of young and horny Muslims so that the lure of 72 virgins may well be the primary recruiting tool for the jihadists to get them to be a "martyr" by committing suicide and getting the sex they cannot get in their own societies.
Having traveled throughout Egypt many times myself, I can say that the classic "jelly bean" theory has come to pass. Feed the bear a jelly bean to ward him off will only work as long as you still have jelly beans. When you run out, be prepared to be the next meal of the bear.
A great book, especially given its date of publication. It was far ahead of its time. If only the idiots in the US State Department, CIA, or FBI had read it, the prime instigator of the first attack on the World Trade Center would have been banned from the US instead of being allowed entry after the Egyptians arrested him for his terrorist activities in the 1980's.

A clear and sensible description of the Muslim Brotherhood
This is without a doubt one of the best and most readable texts on the subject of the rise of Islamist movements in Egypt. It also works as a fitting sequel to Doanld Mitchell's groundbreaking volume - the only one of its kind ever translated into Arabic - on the Ikhwan al-Muslimin, the Muslim Brotherhood written almost two decades earlier. The book describes the social, historical and economic context behind the Islamist movements neither resorting to apologetic arguments or righteous accusations. Kepel shows that Egyptian Islamist organizations have adopted a variety of approaches that are, more often than not, peaceful such as to effectively constitute what may be civil society in Egypt. Indeed, such organizations as the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt have recently shown that some compromise is possible with the representatives of the status-quo as well as with rival factions by participating in national elections, such as to avoid a civil war scenario. The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt now opposes government policy from a legal and regulated official position but it faces pressure from more radical Islamist groups.
Nonetheless, intractable socio-economic problems have made it ever more difficult to contain unrest. The continuing reduction of the public sector since the late '70s and the failure to stimulate private economic enterprise has made it even harder for Egypt to sustain the precarious economic conditions that stimulate Islamist unrest.Although the Egypt achieved significant development in the '50s and '60s, it has pursued misguided economic policies that have fallen short of their potential. The benefits of the oil boom after 1973 and the Sadat-Mubarak economic liberalization policies that followed were mismanaged. Economic liberalization was primarily directed in the speculative construction and real estate sectors and failed to attract foreign investment in other labor intensive and professional areas. Unemployment persisted as the State reduced spending in conformance to IMF debt re-structuring that by 1986 brought about a gradual erosion of the human development achievements of the '50s and '70s. The series of economic reforms benefited the already wealthy.Islamist organizations have also gained popularity by absorbing the void left by the declining State.
Support and membership for such organizations has cut across class and income barriers and is representative of the frustration of a large portion of society, and youth in particular, with the current political establishment in Egypt. The government has not offered viable solutions to problems of unemployment, housing shortages, deteriorating municipal services or the poor quality of health care and education. Kepel also shows that Islamist organizations have solved problems that the government has been unable or unwilling to confront. Unlike government and private banks, the Islamic Brotherhood has operated Islamic Investment Companies (IIC) since the mid-'70s that have provided a real positive rate of interest.Ultimately, in view of chronic economic difficulties and the Government of Egypt's inability to adopt serious reform and tackle the problems of poverty and unemployment seriously makes Egypt very vulnerable to the zeal and violence of militant Islam.

highly recommended reading
This is the first book I would recommend to anyone wanting to understand (1) the agenda of Muslim extremist groups, and (2) what draws people to their "cause".

Kepel argues that the extremist groups have been around since the departure of the European imperialist powers, seeking to create a "pan-Muslim" state as an alternative to the secular nation-states that occupy the region today.Naiive, groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood were easily subverted, repressed and generally thought of as harmless until the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

Citing the poverty, lack of opportunity and political repression as the fertile ground that created these groups, Kepel sympathetically goes on to discuss their agenda - essentially that "secular" "nation-states" are alien and counter to the history and culture of the Islamic world.Truly and outstanding book.

Classic in the Field
This is the work that made the now imminent French scholar of Islamism famous.Kepel was more or less the first scholar to frame "Muslim Extremism" as 1) an extremist phenomenon and 2) a real political threat to the region in such an explicit fashion.As such, this work has been much debated and criticized; however, it still remains a classic in the field.

Ideally, Kepel's work should be read in tandem with Mitchell's work on the Muslim Brothers as Kepel himself seemed to see this work as the follow-up to Mitchell's groundbreaking work.Mitchell's work stopped at the incarceration of the Brotherhood after the Free Officers now longer found their support politically desirable or expedient, and basically, Kepel's picks up at that point-the inhumanity of the prisons, the gallows, and the torture rooms.

Unlike Mitchell's work, however, Kepel's study is not confined to a study of the Muslim Brotherhood but is a study of theradicalization of the Islamic trend in Egypt which splinter into many factional, competing parts-at times as a result of state initiatives as under Sadat.The differing policies of the Nasser and Sadat regime are compared, the influence of Sayyid Qutb emphasized, the moderation and political compromise of the Muslim Brotherhood emphasized, and the desperation and impoverishment of the violent groups such as al-Jama'at al-Islamiyyah and Takfir wa-l-Hijrah are cited as their sources.These all became classic themes in the field.Kepel's work demonstrates that the sources of political Islam are as varied as its social manifestations.

A MOST IMPORTANT IN-DEPTH INTRO TO EGYPTIAN EXTREMIST GROUPS
This is one of the most comprehensive and well-documented study andanalyses of the islamic fundamentalist groups in modern Egypt that has seenthe light up to the present. I read it from start-to-end in a run, soinvolving is the matter it researches as the way in which it is written. Anauthoritative essay and a source of information on one of the most shockingissues of the last (and present) century, focused on one of the less knownareas about religious terrorism. The translation from the French edition isaccurate and confiable. A title you can not miss if you are engaged instudying the subject or merely in knowing more about it. Highlyrecommended! ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from APS Diplomat Fate of the Arabian Peninsula, published by Pam Stein/Input Solutions on April 16, 2001. The length of the article is 969 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: EGYPT - Response To Globalisation & Results.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Publication: APS Diplomat Fate of the Arabian Peninsula (Newsletter)
Date: April 16, 2001
Publisher: Pam Stein/Input Solutions
Volume: 41Issue: 4Page: NA

Article Type: Brief Article, Statistical Data Included

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The central issue addressed in this book is how an authoritarian system of government with personalised, unlimited presidential powers is maintained alongside multi-party legislative elections. The argument is that the democratic institutions are such that they pose little challenge to the president and are primarily instruments of presidential control. The authoritarian rule which was established in Egypt by Nasser in the early 1950s appears to have been preserved to date, not simply as a result of the immense powers which Nasser vested in the office of the presidency, but, more subtly, as a result of the clientistic co-option strategy adopted by his successors, Sadat and Mubarak. In this study May Kassem examines the functions of the non-competitive party system in contemporary Egypt and raises a number of issues that cast doubt on its durability. Her firsthand fieldwork combined with sound analytical judgement reveals the true nature and likely course of democratisation in the second largest country in the Middle East . ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Femnet News, published by African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) on January 1, 2008. The length of the article is 13094 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: Egypt.(Reproductive & Sexual Health Rights in Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Malawi and Rwanda: An Advocacy and Communications Approach)(Report)
Author: Salma Galal
Publication: Femnet News (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2008
Publisher: African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)
Page: SSS25(16)

Article Type: Report

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This digital document is an article from APS Diplomat Recorder, published by Thomson Gale on March 24, 2007. The length of the article is 691 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: EGYPT - Mar 20 - Egypt's Constitutional Reforms Spur Protests.
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication: APS Diplomat Recorder (Newsletter)
Date: March 24, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 66Issue: 12

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This digital document is an article from APS Diplomat Fate of the Arabian Peninsula, published by Pam Stein/Input Solutions on April 16, 2001. The length of the article is 970 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: EGYPT - The Geo-Political Aspects - An 'Egyptian Model'.(Brief Article)
Publication: APS Diplomat Fate of the Arabian Peninsula (Newsletter)
Date: April 16, 2001
Publisher: Pam Stein/Input Solutions
Volume: 41Issue: 4Page: NA

Article Type: Brief Article

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This digital document is an article from APS Diplomat Fate of the Arabian Peninsula, published by Pam Stein/Input Solutions on April 16, 2001. The length of the article is 568 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: EGYPT - The Challenge Of Globalisation - Part 4.(Brief Article)
Publication: APS Diplomat Fate of the Arabian Peninsula (Newsletter)
Date: April 16, 2001
Publisher: Pam Stein/Input Solutions
Volume: 41Issue: 4Page: NA

Article Type: Brief Article

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This digital document is an article from Daedalus, published by American Academy of Arts and Sciences on June 22, 1995. The length of the article is 7034 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: Islamic fundamentalists have effectively disrupted the governments in both Egypt and Algeria. The twin stimuli of economic disparities and a drive to Arabize the two countries complete with a return to the use of Arabic law, shari'a, is a common denominator. But differences in economic options give the Egyptian government a more stable environment. An overview of the activities of the Islamic fundamentalists since the 1950s in Egypt and Algeria is presented. The differences and similarities of the movements in each country is contrasted along with what the future may hold for the Islamists and their movements.

Citation Details
Title: Islamists versus the state in Egypt and Algeria.(The Quest for World Order)
Author: Gilles Kepel
Publication: Daedalus (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 1995
Publisher: American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Volume: v124Issue: n3Page: p109(19)

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