Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East
by Juan Cole
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Book Summary Information
Author: Juan ColeEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-07
ISBN: 1403964319
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Book Reviews of Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East
Book Review: Enlightening view of Europe's first imperial foray into the Middle East.
Summary: 5 Stars
I like Juan Cole. Like most people who wish to be informed on events in the modern Middle East, especially in Iraq, I regularly turn to Cole's `Informed Comment' blog.
I'd also previously enjoyed Cole's work on the later British invasion of Egypt in 1882 and so looked forward to his account and interpretation of the earlier European foray into the Middle East as represented by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. In Cole's view, one needs to understand nineteenth century Egypt in order to understand the modern Middle East and so this book represents the start of that thesis.
I wasn't disappointed either. This is the first work on Napoleon's invasion of Egypt I've read, although I was familiar with the story - the strategic thinking which lay behind attempting to cut the British link to India, to, perhaps, even march on India. The `romantic' view that is attached to the invasion - the Rosetta stone, the cataloguing of Egyptian history, the notion that the French bring the Enlightenment to the benighted natives in their mission civilisatrice.
Cole has no time for this nonsense and rightly so. Cole is interested in the real `cultural encounters' which happened between real people. Cole has delved into the memoirs of the many of the French participants and the, sadly few, Egyptian accounts, to recount the sometimes funny, sometimes tragic and sometimes bloody encounters between the occupied and the occupiers. Cole provides interesting accounts of the sexual encounters between French men and Egyptian women and the cultural understandings and misunderstandings that resulted. These cultural encounters and the military encounters form most of the work.
What is interesting from the start is how the French invasion of Egypt was not just part of a strategic move against British interests but a proposed colonial action for the French middle class who had lost out due to the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean and, essentially, were seeking `compensation' elsewhere.
It's clear from the start, however, that the French are not going to succeed in Egypt. Their army marches across the desert from Alexandria to Cairo in heavy woollen uniforms with no water canteens in 115 degrees and die in large numbers.
After the initial easy military conquest the French become bogged down in large numbers of small skirmishes, popular uprisings, street assassinations all directed against their rule. Napoleon attempts to co-opt the sheiks of Al Azhar to his rule and they, in turn, organise a popular uprising in Cairo. The French respond by slaughtering civilians, executing hundreds and mounting heads on spikes in a bid to cow the natives. The French are cut off from France after the British victory at the Battle of the Nile. Napoleon began to run out of money and so resorted to forced loans, seizures of property of wealthy and poor Egyptians alike. Making the occupied pay for the occupation.
Cole concentrates on the first year of the occupation. The remaining years to 1801 followed the pattern set by year one until the combined British and Ottoman forces forced the French out.
The book is well written. I think Cole's blogging has made him a more readable writer, his earlier `Revolution and Colonialism in the Middle East' can be a little dry at times. Recommended.
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