Egypt

Roger Hudson pictures British gunboat diplomacy in Egypt in 1882.

J.H. Plumb shows how, between 1857 and 1888, after much controversy, the mystery of the Nile’s source was finally solved by the successive discoveries of Speke, Burton, Livingstone and Stanley.

Emile de Groot on the often fractious but ever-intimate relationship between European powers and Egypt.

C.H. Brown presents his study of the political and economic background to mid-twentieth century Egyptian nationalism.

Suggestions that the European Union should have control over Greece’s budget in order to curb its debt crisis have caused a fierce reaction from Athens. James Barker explores a parallel situation in 19th-century Egypt.

Jonathan Downs reports on the fire last December that caused extensive damage to one of Egypt’s most important collections of historical manuscripts.

Michael Scott-Baumann explains why Nasser is such an important figure in the Middle East in the twentieth century.

Colonel Nasser became president of Egypt in 1956. In this article from our 1981 archive, Robert Stephens considers how he has been both acclaimed as a nationalist liberator and condemned as a warmonger. What was his influence on the history of the twentieth century?

The anti-government protests in Egypt earlier this year swept through Cairo and Alexandria before measures could be taken to protect antiquities in museums and archaeological sites in those cities and across the country. Yet, argues Jonathan Downs, the impact on Egyptian heritage and the repatriation debate has been a positive one.

Richard Cavendish remembers King Farouk's succession to the Egyptian throne on April 28th, 1936.

The Mamelukes were massacred in Cairo on March 1st, 1811.

Once the classical world’s dominant port, by the early 19th century the city founded by Alexander the Great was seemingly in terminal decline. But the energy and vision of the Ottoman governor Muhammad Ali restored its fortunes and, ultimately, set Egypt on the path to independence, as Philip Mansel explains.

On the Mediterranean at the western edge of the Nile delta stands the most important and enduring of all the many cities founded by Alexander. Though much of its material past has been destroyed or lies underwater, Alexandria’s reputation as the intellectual powerhouse of the Classical world, fusing Greek, Egyptian and Roman culture, lives on, writes Paul Cartledge.