For Further Study

P. J. Vatikiotis's History of Modern Egypt: From Mohammad Ali to Mubarak (4th ed. 1991) provides a good discussion of the social, cultural, economic, and political modernization of Egypt, from 1805 to 1990. A shorter, more readable history is Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyhid Marsot's A Short History of Modern Egypt (1985), which discusses modern Egypt from the Arab invasion of 639 and continues through the assassination of Sadat and the first two years of Mubarak. A chapter on Nasser in R. Kent Rasmussen's Modern African Political Leaders (1998) surveys the main outlines of Egypt's twentieth century history, through 1970.

For a journalistic account of militant Islamic movements in Egypt and nine other Middle Eastern countries through the mid-1990's, see Judith Miller's God Has Ninety-nine Names: Reporting from a Militant Middle East (1996). In An Egyptian Journal (1985), the noted British author William Golding provides delightful personal observations of modern Egyptian life in his descriptions of the Nile from Cairo to Aswan. In The Arabs: Journeys Beyond the Mirage (1987), journalist David Lamb mixes humor with keen observations of Egypt and other Arab countries during the 1980's. William B. Quandt, in Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics (1986), presents a thorough review of the beginning of the Middle East peace process.

For an excellent history of the Middle East since the fifth century, see Albert Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples (1992). Bernard Lewis in The Shaping of the Modern Middle East (1994) describes the rise of the modern Middle East, identifies major issues of religion, nationalism, and the quest for freedom, and defines Egypt's role in that process. Geneive Abdo's No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam (2000) gives an inside look at Islamic activism in Egypt, through interviews with Islamic activists.

On the Internet, an excellent place to start is the Middle East Network Information Center at the University of Texas at Austin (Http://menic. utexas. edu/menic/countries/egypt. html).