Gatekeepers of the Arab Past: Historians and History Writing in Twentieth-Century Egypt

(University of California Press) In this analysis of a Middle Eastern intellectual tradition, Di-Capua examines the Egyptian experience of modernity by studying modern Egyptian historical thought, which replaced Islamic historiography at the end of the 19th century. Covering more than one hundred years of historical literature in Arabic and examining the careers of numerous historians, he traces the uneasy relationship between Egyptian historiography, colonial forms of knowledge, and the post-colonial state. Di-Capua is an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas, Austin.