All the Pasha's Men Mehmed Ali, his Army and the Making of Modern Egypt

by Fahmy, Khaled

• ISBN13: 9789774246968
• ISBN10: 9774246969
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-10-15
• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press

Summary

While scholarship has traditionally viewed Mehmed Ali Pasha as the founder of modern Egypt, Khaled Fahmy offers a new interpretation of his role in the rise of Egyptian nationalism, firmly locating him within the Ottoman context as an ambitious, if problematic, Ottoman reformer. Basing his work on previously neglected archival material, the author demonstrates how Mehmed Ali sought to develop the Egyptian economy and to build up the army, not as a means of gaining Egyptian independence from the Ottoman empire, but to further his own ambitions for recognized hereditary rule over the province. By focusing on the army and the soldier's daily experiences, the author constructs a detailed picture of attempts at modernization and reform, how they were planned and implemented by various reformers, and how the public at large understood and accommodated them. In this way, the work contributes to the larger methodological and theoretical debates concerning nation-building and the construction of state power in the particular context of early nineteenth-century Egypt.

Author Biography

Khaled Fahmy is associate professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at New York University.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	viii
Preface	ix
Acknowledgements	xiii
Note on transliteration, dates and references	xv
Introduction	1	(37)
Between Sultan and vali: Syria and the nature of Mehmed Ali's military expansion	38	(38)
The birth of an army: conscription and resistance	76	(36)
From peasants to soldiers: discipline and training	112	(48)
Beyond the facade of order: the performance of the army	160	(39)
Behind the lines: daily life in the camps	199	(40)
Mehmed Ali's army and the Egyptian nation	239	(39)
The Egyptian Vali, the Ottoman Pashas and the British Lord	278	(28)
Conclusion	306	(13)
Bibliography	319	(11)
Index	330