Description
Book SynopsisThis analysis of the failure of efforts to achieve liberal reform in Egypt following its independence from Great Britain in 1922 has implications for modern-day nation-building efforts in the Mideast.
Trade Review“
Liberalism without Democracy raises fundamentally important issues and is incredibly timely and relevant to current debates in the Middle East about democratization and foreign intervention.”—Diane Singerman, coeditor of
Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East“Abdeslam Maghraoui’s book is among the more cogent recent explanations of the reasons liberalism failed in the Middle East. Through its examination of the role of language and culture in Egypt,
Liberalism without Democracy sheds light on a central weakness of liberalism—its commitment to individual liberty and colonial conquest.”—Edmund Burke III, coeditor of
After the Colonial Turn: Orientalism, History, and Theory“This is a valuable book. [This is not] simply a thorough, detailed study of Egyptian politics. . . . [It] is much more than that. It is relevant to the present American misadventure in Iraq and to Western imperialism more generally. . . . Perhaps no one else has thoroughly documented, as well as Maghraoui, the extent to which some “liberal” writers tried to mimic the West. The author has provided much compelling evidence to support the ideas of those scholars who decry the confusion between modernization and Westernization.” -- Glenn Perry * Middle East Studies Digest *
Table of ContentsPreface ix
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1
1. Colonialism as a Literary and Historical Phenomenon 14
2. The Colonial Encounter in Egypt 37
3. Defining the Boundaries of the Political Community 64
4. The Cultural Preconditions of Citizenship 87
5. Egypt’s Liberal Experiment in Comparative Perspective 118
Conclusion 141
Notes 149
Selected Bibliography 171
Index 181
