Colonising Egypt by Timothy Mitchell
Review by: Peter Gran
The American Historical Review, Vol. 95, No. 1 (Feb., 1990), pp. 217-218
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association
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Near East
217
schen Orient, number 3.) Berlin: Baalbek. 1982. Pp.
xix, 437. DM 36.
gion, which increased after 1880. Presented somewhat
chronologically, the discussion here is more thoughtful. The relationship between German trade with Syria
Following the Egyptian occupation (1832-40) of those and Palestine and internal German economic condiparts of the Ottoman empire commonly referred to as tions, diplomatic considerations, colonial interests, and
Syria and Palestine, European and American mission- the policies of Otto von Bismarck and William II is
ary activity, commercial and political interests, and presented. Sinno leaves no doubt that, although Gerscientific and Biblical studies in the area increased. man trade with the region was expanding, it was of no
Recent monographs have focused on American, Brit- real consequence to the German empire, accounting
ish, Russian, Austrian, and French involvement in the for only 0.2 percent of its foreign trade by 1900. The
region in the mid- to late nineteenth century but have work concludes with the visit of William II to Palestine
ignored or viewed tangentially the interest of the and Syria in 1898, which is viewed as significant beGerman states prior to confederation and, subse- cause it encouraged German economic concessions
quently, the German empire. Although Gad Bensinger elsewhere in the sultan's domain.
in his dissertation, "Palestine in German Thought and
Sinno leans heavily on published annual reports,
Action, 1871-1914" (1971), considered aspects of Ger- periodicals, and special histories produced by the varman activity in the region, an incisive study remained ious religiously oriented organizations. He makes occato be undertaken.
sional reference to Prussian, imperial German, and
Setting out to fill this void, Abdel-Raouf Sinno has British unpublished diplomatic documents. With regiven the most detailed look at the subject to date but gard to trade statistics, Sinno ignores the useful pubhas failed to analyze it fully and has virtually omitted lished British commercial, consular, and diplomatic
consideration of the activities of the Templerkolonien, reports and official statistical abstracts. A map and a
and German archaeologists and exploratory associa- full subject index, not one limited to the names of
tions, as well as of the German relationship to Jewish individuals, would have enhanced the book.
aspirations in Palestine.
ELVA BOGERT CRAWFORD
Sinno concludes that Germans had neither extensive
Fairfax, Virginia
interests nor unqualified successes in Syria and Palestine in the nineteenth century. Between 1841 and
1898, no systematic German policy emerged to trans- TIMOTHY MITCHELL. ColonisingEgypt. (Cambridge Midform the region into a German sphere of influence. dle East Library.) New York: Cambridge University
Momentum for a German presence, especially prior to Press. 1988. Pp. x, 218. $42.50.
1880, came primarily from German religious groups,
to which two-thirds of this volume is devoted. Yet The study of the British colonization of Egypt has been
Sinno suggests that the extent of the work undertaken a developed field of scholarship for a generation. It
by those groups benefited from the willingness of the contains Marxist studies of imperialism and "CommonGerman state(s) and public to help prepare the way and wealth School" studies defending the motivations of
to provide backing.
the leading European politicians of the time. Recent
The book commences with a somewhat limited study neo-Marxist scholarship, to which this work is partly
of the development of the Anglo-Prussian bishopric in indebted, suggests a pQssible synthesis of these apJerusalem, which lasted from 1841 to 1886. Sinno then proaches. For example, Alexander Scholch found that
proceeds with a detailed examination of the German the catalyst of the British decision to invade Egypt
Protestant missionary endeavors in Palestine and Syria emerged as the brainchild of Europeans in Egypt
that followed the bishopric's establishment. One chap- whose interests were threatened by the rise of the
ter treats the more limited efforts of German Catholic nationalist Ahmad 'Urabi (Scholch, "The 'Men on the
organizations. The author offers copious information Spot' and the English Occupation of Egypt in 1882,"
about German-run hospitals, schools, a leper colony, HistoricalJournal13 [1976]: 773-86). They frightened
hospices, agricultural communities, vocational training the Foreign Office with their reports and manipulated
programs, and orphanages, including their finances London into undertaking the invasion. Overall, the
and organization. By considering each missionary en- interpretation of the colonization of Egypt has been
terprise individually, in often overwhelming detail, moving in recent years in the direction of events
Sinno's study becomes ponderous, loses analytical in Egypt and away from events in London. The works
depth, and obscures overall relationships. Clearly, con- of Egyptian social historians, such as those of 'Ali
versions were sparse. The missionaries' lasting legacy Barakat and 'Asim al-Dissuqi, appear to define the
became those charitable works that received Ottoman modern discourse by outlining the broad contours
approval. Sinno believes that those works helped pre- of Egypt in the nineteenth and early twentieth centupare the way for subsequent strengthening of German ries. The virtue of the present book is to find a fresh
economic and diplomatic ties with the Ottoman em- angle of inquiry through poststructuralist literary
pire.
criticism.
The final third of this book addresses German commercial, diplomatic, and colonial interests in the re-
The originality of Timothy Mitchell'swork lies in two
areas: the European cultural preparation for colonial
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
218
Reviews of Books
hegemony lasting throughout the nineteenth century
and the role of the Egyptian elite in this preparation.
If, as Mitchell argues, colonialists produce a new notion
of self and "other," he should then deconstruct the
history of museum exhibits, world's fairs, photography,
and orientalist conferences as Edward Said did novels.
In addition, the indigenous elite in Egypt must have
played a role in validating new representations of
themselves and their country. This they did, even if
they were critical of some European stereotypes in
point of detail. Mitchell includes the views of influential
Egyptians, who happened to witness the representations of their own society. He shows how the ruling
class, on encountering its identity in the European
mind, found it strategic to Europeanize itself and to
remove the features that made it an "other" for Europeans. To do this rulers were prepared to agree that
much of Egypt was a barbarous mystery in need of the
modernity and rationality only to be found in any large
CHARMLEY. LordLloydand theDecline of the British
Empire. New York: St. Martin's. 1987. Pp. x, 294.
$29.95
JOHN
John Charmley's book proves that old-style panegyric
biographies are not a thing of the past. Following
Charmley's first book, Duff Cooper:TheAuthorizedBiography(1986), this biography has all of the hallmarks of
another "authorized" study. This is not, however, to
discount Charmley's extensive research. He has made
good use of primary sources and has clearly enjoyed
extensive access to the personal papers and reminiscences of the Lloyd family. Primary source material
and collections of papers have been usefully arranged
in the bibliography by location rather than by the more
commonly used alphabetical order.
Charmley does a creditablejob in the descriptions of
Lord Lloyd's rather checkered career as a Tory politician; the account of Lloyd's role in the Conservative
party and of party policies prior to and during World
measure in Europe.
War II is particularlyinformative. The author is clearly
Mitchell studies the career and writings of a "newly at ease with this material and evidently has had considde-traditionalized" elite intellectual, the scholar and erable "in-side" information concerning Winston
engineer Ali Mubarak, and a "neotraditional"scholar, Churchill and his coterie.
Unfortunately, most of Lloyd's career was spent not
Husayn al-Marsafi. After Mubarak encountered Europe, he returned to Cairo and set about westernizing in party politics but in ranking diplomatic positions in
the street system and the education system. The India and Egypt. That Asia and the Middle East are not
Foucauldian approach serves well in explaining the Charmley's area of specialization is evident on a numconnections between Mubarak's seemingly unrelated ber of points. There are relatively minor slips, such as
enterprises; a plan to change the organization of the references to the Witantist for Hizb al-Watani (Nationurban design of Cairo led to the creation of open al party) or to Abbas Himli for the former khedive
spaces and regular streets yet was also related to the Abbas Hilmi. More discomfiting is Charmley's uncritiplan to change the minds and habits of students. cal acceptance of Lloyd's hard-line imperialist and
Mitchell also delves into the way in which the strategies sometimes openly racist viewpoints. On this point, one
employed by the Europeanizing elite were rationalized example out of many will suffice. Lloyd's opinion about
in an Islamic idiom. The Egyptian government pre- "the fundamental unsuitability of modern western
sented its new demands to the peasantry not simply by democratic methods of government to any Oriental
without comment. Such a
coercive measures but as part of Islamic tradition. people" (p. 170) passes
sweeping generality might well bemuse, if not outrage,
Mitchell demonstrates that tradition with an original
the Indian people who, in spite of formidable obstacles,
reading of the famous essay on eight words by Shaykh
have preserved the world's largest democracy for over
Husayn al-Marsafi, a religious intellectual, whose
forty years.
family owned land in the Delta. Mitchell's reading
Charmley attempts to soften the general perception
emphasizes the logic of adjacency; Marsafi'slogic is not of Lloyd as an aloof and authoritarian personality by
simply a vertical part of Islamic tradition but also a recounting sometimes charming anecdotes about
horizontal part linked to that of Lord Cromer, whose Lloyd's devotion to friends and family. The overModernEgypt(1978) conveys a hope of creating similar whelming majority of accounts regarding Lloyd's debonds between ruler and ruled. A shared logic of meanor as a public representative of the British empire
adjacency explains other apparently unrelated phe- indicate, however, that he was both overbearing and
nomena as well, for example, the feminism of Qasim autocratic. Charmley chooses to discount Egyptian
Amin.
sources on this point, nor do his sources include the
Mitchell appears to have constructed this book to comments byJ. Morton Howell, the U.S. ambassador to
stimulate two audiences: a small one interested in Egypt during part of Lloyd's appointment to Cairo.
mid-nineteenth-century Egypt and a larger but less Howell's Egypt'sPast, Presentand Futuremight be disrecohesive one interested in cultural representations but garded on the grounds of his well-known Anglophobia,
known to prefer the Middle East as a fantasy world. It but such can hardly be the case for similar comments by
will be the second that will find Mitchell'swork provoc- numerous British officials in Cairo and London. For
ative.
example, in his unpublished diary (not cited in the
PETER GRAN
bibliography), which is part of the collection of St.
TempleUniversity Antony's College, Oxford, Owen Tweedy, a British
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