Mitchell, a professor of politics at New York University, has written an astonishing book.
He provides an interpretation of the colonial process by drawing on wide readings of nineteenth century observers (including Lord Cromer, Gustave le Bon, Husayn al-Marsafi, and 'Ali Mubarak) and contemporary French theorists (especially Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault). The result is a subtle, almost elusive thesis which boils down to this: the European act of subjugating Egypt entailed the imposition of a similar but wholly alien order on virtually every aspect of Egyptian life—from the reordering of the village house to the philosophy of education. If there was one element common to all these efforts, it was the Europeans' creation of external forms, frames in which to place native life, thereby neutralizing, even ridiculing it, and draining it of power.
Mitchell's effort at a theoretical construct is brilliant and his details are fascinating (especially the specific examples brought to light from the remoteness of a century ago, such as his descriptions of the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris and the Lancaster method of teaching). But his effort is deeply wrong-headed, even perverse. Take the matter of Egyptians refusing to adopt the printing press until the nineteenth century. Mitchell dismisses the usual explanation, obscurantism and preservation of power. Instead, he recalls the high Muslim practice of text recitation and explication, then argues that this tradition made the prospect of uncontrolled publishing anathema to the scholars. Mitchell's is a brave attempt, but he fails on two counts. First, he has done no more than specify the reasons for obscurantism; second, not every piece of writing is a "text" requiring explanation and not all opposition came from scholars; the opposition to printing had far deeper and wider roots than Mitchell allows.
For all its faults (and there are many, including the maddening and wholly unnecessary use of the first-person pronoun once a page), Colonising Egypt presents a new approach to the interpretation of modern Middle East history. More importantly it calls for a response.
