Egypt's Belle Epoque Cairo and the Age of the Hedonists

by Mostyn, Trevor

• ISBN13: 9781845112400
• ISBN10: 1845112407
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-09-05
• Publisher: Tauris Parke Paperbacks

Summary

Egypt'sbelle époquewas a period of incredible extravagance during which the Khedive Ismail's Cairo became the mirror image, both architecturally and socially, of decadent Paris. The glamour and hedonism of the era reached its peak during the magnificent celebrations for the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Kings and emperors, artists, writers and Europe's most sophisticated flocked to the dazzling new Cairo of sumptuous palaces and Parisian gardens, where Verdi'sAidapremiered at the new opera house and glittering parties were held on the banks of the Nile. But the splendour was short-lived. Only a year after the Suez Canal opened, the Second Empire in France collapsed and the Khedive's excesses plunged Egypt into crippling debt. Ismail was eventually forced to abdicate, leaving Cairo to the British who occupied Egypt in all but name. This is a riveting account of an extraordinary moment in the history of both France and Egypt.

Author Biography

Trevor Mostyn has been a journalist, publisher and consultant in the Arab world, Iran and India. He visited Sarajevo as a war correspondent with Reporters sans Frontières in 1993, and wrote for the New Statesman on the revolution in Iran and the civil war in Lebanon. He was a Financial Times correspondent in Cairo and is Middle East correspondent for The Tablet. His book Censorship in Islamic Society was published in 2002 and he has just finished a romantic novel set in the Middle East. He is also deputy chair of English PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(71)
1 Chibuks and Lice in Ismail's Harem	5	(4)
2 Obsession for an Empress	9	(5)
3 Napoleon's Hated 'Mission Civilizatrice'	14	(7)
4 Muhammad Ali — a Brutal Age of Development	21	(8)
5 A Cruel Princess	29	(6)
6 Rulers of the New Renaissance	35	(7)
7 Ismail — a Ruler Obsessed	42	(10)
8 Paris's Belle Epoque and the Great Exhibition	52	(9)
9 Ismail's Cairo — a Glitzy Age	61	(11)
10 The Finest Opera House in the World	72	(11)
11 The Palace of the Empress	83	(5)
12 The Cousin of the Empress	88	(8)
13 La Belle Eugenie	96	(5)
14 The Opening of the Accursed Canal	101	(6)
15 A Week of Hedonism	107	(7)
16 The Fall of Eugenie	114	(5)
17 The Fall of Ismail	119	(6)
18 Mr Cook and the Hotel Age	125	(4)
19 Cairo: the Englishman's Playground	129	(12)
20 Cairo's Sweet-scented Odalisques	141	(8)
21 The Age of the Great Hotels	149	(11)
22 Cairo's Last Flame	160	(7)
23 Setting Fire to Ismail's City	167	(4)
Epilogue: Ismail's Cairo Today	171	(7)
Notes	178	(7)
Bibliography	185	(6)
Index	191