Nurturing the Nation

The Family Politics of Modernizing, Colonizing, and Liberating Egypt, 1805-1923

Bibliographic Data

ID23135883
AuthorsLisa Pollard (corresponding author)
Year2005
Pages302
Publication date2005-01-31
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueNurturing the Nation (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity of California Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1525/california/9780520240223.001.0001
OpenAlexW2251516417
Open LibraryOL7711800M
ISBN9780520240223
LanguageEN
Citations received61

Focusing on gender and the family, this history reconsiders the origins of Egyptian nationalism and the revolution of 1919 by linking social changes in class and household structure to the politics of engagement with British colonial rule. It argues that the Egyptian state's modernizing projects in the nineteenth century reinforced ideals of monogamy and bourgeois domesticity among Egypt's elite classes and connected those ideals with political and economic success. At the same time, the British used domestic and personal practices such as polygamy, the harem, and the veiling of women to claim that the ruling classes had become corrupt, and therefore to legitimize an open-ended tenure for themselves in Egypt. To rid themselves of British rule, bourgeois Egyptian nationalists constructed a familial–political culture which trained new generations of nationalists, and used them to demonstrate to the British that it was time for the occupation to end. That culture was put to use in the 1919 Egyptian revolution, in which the reformed, bourgeois family was exhibited as the standard for “modern” Egypt.

Bourgeoisie · Colonialism · Economic history · Elite · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Ruling class · Sociology · State (computer science) · Gender Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender · 1914-1918 · African history: c 1500 to c 1900 · Alternative Family · c 1800 to c 1900 · c 1900 - c 1914 · Childbirth · Cross-cultural studies · Egypt · Families · Family · Family & Relationships · Family policy · First World War · General · Globalization · History - General History · History: World · Middle East - Egypt · Middle East - General · Parenting · Reference · Social history