DIVExplores the relation between nineteenth-century American interest in ancient Egypt in architecture, literature, and science, and the ways Egypt was deployed by advocates for slavery and by African American writers./div

The voices of Americans have long been absent from studies of modern Egypt. Most scholars assume that Americans were either not in Egypt in significant numbers during the nineteenth century or had little of importance to say. This volume shows that neither was the case by introducing and relating the experiences and attitudes of 15 American personalities who worked, lived, or traveled in Egypt from the 1770s to the commencement of World War I. Often in their own words, explorers, consuls, tourists, soldiers, missionaries, artists, scientists, and scholars offer a rare American perspective on everyday Egyptian life and provide a new perspective on many historically significant events. The stories of these individuals and their sojourns not only recount the culture and history of Egypt but also convey the domination of the country by European powers and the support for Egypt by a young American nation.

The Treaty of Ghent signed in 1814, ending the War of 1812, allowed Americans once again to travel abroad. Medical students went to Paris, artists to Rome, academics to Göttingen, and tourists to all European capitals. More intrepid Americans ventured to Athens, to Constantinople, and even to Egypt. Beginning with two eighteenth-century travelers, this book then turns to the 25-year period after 1815 that saw young men from East Coast cities, among them graduates of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, traveling to the lands of the Bible and of the Greek and Latin authors they had first known as teenagers. Naval officers off ships of the Mediterranean squadron visited Cairo to see the pyramids. Two groups went on business, one importing steam-powered rice and cotton mills from New York, the other exporting giraffes from the Kalahari Desert for wild animal shows in New York. Drawing on unpublished letters and diaries together with previously neglected newspaper accounts, as well as a handful of published accounts, this book offers a new look at the early American experience in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean world. More than thirty illustrations complement the stories told by the travelers themselves.

The recent revolution in Egypt has shaken the Arab world to its roots. The most populous Arab country and the historical center of Arab intellectual life, Egypt is a lynchpin of the US's Middle East strategy, receiving more aid than any nation except Israel. This is not the first time that the world and has turned its gaze to Egypt, however. A half century ago, Egypt under Nasser became the putative leader of the Arab world and a beacon for all developing nations. Yet in the decades prior to the 2011 revolution, it was ruled over by a sclerotic regime plagued by nepotism and corruption. During that time, its economy declined into near shambles, a severely overpopulated Cairo fell into disrepair, and it produced scores of violent Islamic extremists such as Ayman al-Zawahiri and Mohammed Atta. In this new and updated paperback edition of The Struggle for Egypt, Steven Cook--a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations--explains how this parlous state of affairs came to be, why the revolution occurred, and where Egypt is headed now. A sweeping account of Egypt in the modern era, it incisively chronicles all of the nation's central historical episodes: the decline of British rule, the rise of Nasser and his quest to become a pan-Arab leader, Egypt's decision to make peace with Israel and ally with the United States, the assassination of Sadat, the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood, and--finally--the demonstrations that convulsed Tahrir Square and overthrew an entrenched regime. And for the paperback edition, Cook has updated the book to include coverage of the recent political events in Egypt, including the election of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi as President. Throughout Egypt's history, there has been an intense debate to define what Egypt is, what it stands for, and its relation to the world. Egyptians now have an opportunity to finally answer these questions. Doing so in a way that appeals to the vast majority of Egyptians, Cook notes, will be difficult but ultimately necessary if Egypt is to become an economically dynamic and politically vibrant society.

This work examines Egyptian mummies as artifacts in pre-1900 America: how they got here, what happened to them, and how they were perceived by the public and by archaeologists. Collected newspaper accounts and other documents reveal the progression of American interest in mummies as curiosities, commodities, and cultural lessons. Numerous mummies which no longer exist are identified, and commentary on mummy coffins and a discussion of methods of public exhibition are included.

Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1955 decision to barter Egyptian cotton for Soviet bloc weaponry thrust Egypt onto center stage in the Cold War in the Middle East. What Egypt needed most, and what the United States was uniquely equipped to provide, was economic aid. For the Egyptian government--eager to take rapid strides toward economic development but crippled by a burgeoning population, a paucity of arable land, and a meager reserve of foreign exchange--American economic aid promised to serve as an enormously important crutch. For American policymakers, economic assistance appeared to be an ideal means of developing American influence in Egypt. Few aid relationships in the last three decades can match the drama and significance of the U.S.-Egyptian experience. This study shows how the American government attempted to use its economic aid program to induce or coerce Egypt to support U.S. interests in the Middle East in the quarter century following the 1955 Czech-Egyptian arms agreement. William J. Burns has analyzed recently released government documents and interviews with former policymakers to throw light on the use of aid as a tool of American policy toward the Nasser regime. He also offers valuable observations on the role of the American economic assistance program in the Sadat era.