Foreign affairs 2019 09-10

213

anism.... Few Egyptians seemed

concerned that after three years o



revolution the authorities still lacked a

basic protocol for dealing with unrest.”

Comparative authoritarianism is always a

dicey enterprise, but I don’t quite agree

with Hessler’s conclusion. The Egyptian

reluctance to insist on more ecient

autocracy may have reected the residual,

i  fading, hopes for the revolutionary

uprising more than it demonstrated a lack

o

 concern for competent government.

THE WORLD OF WOMEN

There are other missing pieces in Hessler’s

picture. His focus on Cairo and Upper

Egypt, for example, leaves out quite a bit

o

 the country, including the Nile Delta

and the north coast, which is home to the

famed, faded city o

 Alexandria and

around 40 million o  Egypt’s 95 million

or so inhabitants. Instead o

 unearthing

the contemporary reality o

 those areas,

Hessler delves into the Pharaonic past.

As Hessler himsel

 observes, his enthusi-

asm for ancient Egypt is not typical o



Egyptians themselves. “Average Egyp-

tians take pride in their pharaonic history,

but there’s also a disconnect, because the

tradition o

 the Islamic past is stronger

and more immediate,” he writes. “The

ancients belong to foreigners and Islam

belongs to us” is how Hessler sums up the

typical Egyptian view. And yet Islam

plays a surprisingly modest role in this

book and is usually portrayed as a source

o

 constraint: the demands o

 the Rama-

dan fast and the inconvenience o

 the

niqab feature more prominently than, say,

the joy Egyptians take in celebrating

religious holidays or the satisfaction they

’nd in communal rituals.

This sense o

 constraint also seeps into

Hessler’s assessment o

 the position o

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FA.indb 213 7/18/19 7:16 PM

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2019-Sept-Oct-FA-Boduszynski-US_Foreign Affairs 7/8/19 4:08 PM Page 1

213

anism.... Few Egyptians seemed

concerned that after three years o



revolution the authorities still lacked a

basic protocol for dealing with unrest.”

Comparative authoritarianism is always a

dicey enterprise, but I don’t quite agree

with Hessler’s conclusion. The Egyptian

reluctance to insist on more ecient

autocracy may have reected the residual,

i  fading, hopes for the revolutionary

uprising more than it demonstrated a lack

o

 concern for competent government.

THE WORLD OF WOMEN

There are other missing pieces in Hessler’s

picture. His focus on Cairo and Upper

Egypt, for example, leaves out quite a bit

o

 the country, including the Nile Delta

and the north coast, which is home to the

famed, faded city o

 Alexandria and

around 40 million o  Egypt’s 95 million

or so inhabitants. Instead o

 unearthing

the contemporary reality o

 those areas,

Hessler delves into the Pharaonic past.

As Hessler himsel

 observes, his enthusi-

asm for ancient Egypt is not typical o



Egyptians themselves. “Average Egyp-

tians take pride in their pharaonic history,

but there’s also a disconnect, because the

tradition o

 the Islamic past is stronger

and more immediate,” he writes. “The

ancients belong to foreigners and Islam

belongs to us” is how Hessler sums up the

typical Egyptian view. And yet Islam

plays a surprisingly modest role in this

book and is usually portrayed as a source

o

 constraint: the demands o

 the Rama-

dan fast and the inconvenience o

 the

niqab feature more prominently than, say,

the joy Egyptians take in celebrating

religious holidays or the satisfaction they

’nd in communal rituals.

This sense o

 constraint also seeps into

Hessler’s assessment o

 the position o

ForeignAffairs.com/newsletters

Not all readers

are leaders,

but all leaders

are readers.

• Harry S. Truman

SIGN UP for the

Foreign Affairs

Books & Reviews

newsletter

FA.indb 213FA 213_edit_ad.indd 1 7/19/19 12:46 PM7/18/19 7:16 PM