The Political Economy of Private Printing in Cairo as Told From a Commissioning Deal Turned Sour, 1871
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8967018 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kathryn A Schwartz (0000-0003-1653-4579, Eastern Mediterranean University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 25-45 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-20 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0020743816001124 |
| OpenAlex | W2578823110 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 31 |
This article examines the political economy of Cairo's emerging Arabic private printing industry during the third quarter of the 19th century. I use the constituent texts of the industry to demonstrate that it developed upon the speculative model of commissioning, whereby individuals paid printers to produce particular works of their choosing. Commissioning indicates that Egyptian private printing grew from local traditions for producing handwritten texts. Nevertheless, print commissioning differed from manuscript commissioning by requiring individuals to assume great financial risk. I explore the nature and implications of this divergence through a treatise published in 1871 by Musa Kastali, a particularly prolific printer who helped to professionalize Cairene printing. Musa's treatise details his legal battle with a famous Azhari commissioner, and is unique for describing a printer's business practices. It demonstrates the importance of situating printings within their socioeconomic contexts in addition to their intellectual ones, a task which cannot be done without an appreciation for the functioning of the printing industry at a local level
Ancient history · Archaeology · Battle · Divergence (linguistics · Economics · Linguistics · Management · Political science · Politics · Project commissioning · Publishing · Quarter (Canadian coin · African history and culture analysis · Engineering · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law
Provenance in the Aggregate
Print and the Question of Literature in Islamic West Africa
Print Culture and New Fictional Imagination in Colonial Egypt
Paul Sbath’s Manuscript Library
Land Privatization in Islamic Law? The case of irṣād in Egypt, 1850-1950
Kathryn Schwartz, Book Historian of the Modern Middle East
Maritime Adventures of The Count of Monte Cristo as a Modern Arab Epic
Meandering Through the Magazine
Book history, print, and the Middle East
What’s in a name? Perceptions of authorship and copyright during the Arabic nahda
A Latin Alphabet for the Arabic Language
The Press in the Arab Middle East
The Power of Representation
On Time
Striking Cabbies of Cairo and Other Stories, The
The Whispers of Cities
Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939
An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians
Jews in nineteenth-century Egypt
The Copts of Egypt
The Press in the Arab Middle East
The Syrians in Egypt, 1725-1975
Printing Arab Modernity
Ordinary Egyptians
Chapter 6 Cosmopolitan Cursing in Late Nineteenth-Century Alexandria
Calligraphic State
A Printed Muslim “Lighthouse” in Cairo al-Manār's Early Years, Religious Aspiration and Reception (1898-1903)
Printing and Translations under Muḥammad 'Alī of Egypt
The De Rossetti Affair
Nineteenth-Century Egypt as Dynastic Locus of Universality
Muhammad Al-'Abbāsī Al-Mahdi (D. 1897), Grand Mufti of Egypt, and His Al-Fatāwā Al-Mahdiyya
Colonial Bridgehead
Artisans et Commercants au Caire au XVIIIe siecle
Printing, Publishing, and Reform in Tsarist Central Asia
Ottoman Censorship in Lebanon and Syria, 1876–1908
The Construction of Salafiyya
Positioning the Watch Hand
Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age
The Practical Visions of Ya'qub Sanu
Technology and Religious Change
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,22 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2025 (9) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |