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Colonialisms
A Different Shade of Colonialism: Egypt, Great Britain, and the Mastery of the Sudan
This incisive study adds a new dimension to discussions of Egypt's nationalist response to the phenomenon of colonialism as well as to discussions of colonialism and nationalism in general. Eve M. Troutt Powell challenges many accepted tenets of the binary relationship between European empires and non-European colonies by examining the triangle of colonialism marked by Great Britain, Egypt, and the Sudan. She demonstrates how central the issue of the Sudan was to Egyptian nationalism and highlights the deep ambivalence in Egyptian attitudes toward empire and the resulting ambiguities and paradoxes that were an essential component of the nationalist movement. A Different Shade of Colonialism enriches our understanding of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Egyptian attitudes toward slavery and race and expands our perspective of the "colonized colonizer."
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Eve M. Troutt Powell
3 books6 followersEve M. Troutt Powell is Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of A Different Shade of Colonialism: Egypt, Great Britain, and the Mastery of the Sudan (2003). In 2003, she was a recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 25, 2015
This is a book in which the reader has to take the good with the bad. I feel like I walked away from it not knowing a whole lot more about the relationship between Egypt and Sudan than I could already educatedly deduce before reading the text. For example, anyone who has followed the Darfur conflict of the last couple of decades can glean the obvious: that North African Arabs are not particularly fond of sub-Saharan Africans and that this antipathy probably has a fairly ancient provenance. Of course, Egyptians' relationship with the Sudanese in the past has ranged from outright enslavement of the latter to patrimonial suzerainty over them in the name of a "civilizing mission". However, in all cases the same underlying discursive vibe is apparent: Sudanese are considered inferior by their northern neighbours. It seems that not much has changed to the present day.
The unique historical experience of British-controlled Egypt - being both a colonized country and a colonizer (of the Sudan) - is indeed an anomalous one in the annals of imperialism, but I really don't feel that the author educed anything profound about this liminal position that Egypt occupied, at least not as profound as I had hoped. I suppose one of the most interest-piquing elements of Eve's analysis is her exposition of Egyptian attitudes toward the Sudanese as a kind of 'Orientalism lite,' I might call it. Suffice it to say that Egyptians practiced many of the discursive strategies of language-as-power against the Sudanese that Edward Said so famously castigated Europeans for using against Egyptians! I must say, I appreciate the irony that to a certain degree the pot has called the kettle black. Indeed, many tropes and caricatures that Egyptians used to reify their Sudanese neighbours will strike the reader acquainted with Orientalism and postcolonial theory as uncannily familiar.
The section of the book on Egyptian enslavement of Sudanese is somewhat interesting, particularly as it concerns the British reaction toward that particular institution. However, even here I was kind of taken aback by some dubious assertions Eve makes, most notably, that Egyptian slavery was indeed 'tamer' than trans-Atlantic European slavery (this is both subjective and extremely debatable!)
I think the most egregious shortcoming of this text is that Eve focuses her analysis solely on individuals, bourgeois Egyptians who are paradoxically elite and yet peripheral. I really can't think of a single personage in Eve's narrative who is really worth remembering. And as a consequence of this individual focus, one really doesn't get a sense of how Sudan appeared to the run-of-the-mill Egyptian at the quotidian level from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth. Did they care? What did they think of Egypt's imperial pretensions there? We're never told. It's possible that the source base for such knowledge does not exist because we're dealing with a largely illiterate population in the case of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Egypt; but it's equally possible that the source base does not exist because wider Egyptian society was indifferent about some bourgeois Egyptian intellectuals' claims to Egypt's purported rights of possession of the Sudan. Moreover, these intellectuals almost never had any real political power either, so they are fairly useless to a study of the political steps colonial and postcolonial Egypt took towards its southern neighbour.
I think this text needs to be read in order to develop a well rounded knowledge of North African historiography, the knowledge that the history of imperialism in North Africa is not simply that of a cavalcade of European aggression, but that some North Africans had their hand in the imperialist enterprise. However, be aware that this text might be a bit of a let down, not offering quite what I think it had the potential to deliver.
The unique historical experience of British-controlled Egypt - being both a colonized country and a colonizer (of the Sudan) - is indeed an anomalous one in the annals of imperialism, but I really don't feel that the author educed anything profound about this liminal position that Egypt occupied, at least not as profound as I had hoped. I suppose one of the most interest-piquing elements of Eve's analysis is her exposition of Egyptian attitudes toward the Sudanese as a kind of 'Orientalism lite,' I might call it. Suffice it to say that Egyptians practiced many of the discursive strategies of language-as-power against the Sudanese that Edward Said so famously castigated Europeans for using against Egyptians! I must say, I appreciate the irony that to a certain degree the pot has called the kettle black. Indeed, many tropes and caricatures that Egyptians used to reify their Sudanese neighbours will strike the reader acquainted with Orientalism and postcolonial theory as uncannily familiar.
The section of the book on Egyptian enslavement of Sudanese is somewhat interesting, particularly as it concerns the British reaction toward that particular institution. However, even here I was kind of taken aback by some dubious assertions Eve makes, most notably, that Egyptian slavery was indeed 'tamer' than trans-Atlantic European slavery (this is both subjective and extremely debatable!)
I think the most egregious shortcoming of this text is that Eve focuses her analysis solely on individuals, bourgeois Egyptians who are paradoxically elite and yet peripheral. I really can't think of a single personage in Eve's narrative who is really worth remembering. And as a consequence of this individual focus, one really doesn't get a sense of how Sudan appeared to the run-of-the-mill Egyptian at the quotidian level from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth. Did they care? What did they think of Egypt's imperial pretensions there? We're never told. It's possible that the source base for such knowledge does not exist because we're dealing with a largely illiterate population in the case of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Egypt; but it's equally possible that the source base does not exist because wider Egyptian society was indifferent about some bourgeois Egyptian intellectuals' claims to Egypt's purported rights of possession of the Sudan. Moreover, these intellectuals almost never had any real political power either, so they are fairly useless to a study of the political steps colonial and postcolonial Egypt took towards its southern neighbour.
I think this text needs to be read in order to develop a well rounded knowledge of North African historiography, the knowledge that the history of imperialism in North Africa is not simply that of a cavalcade of European aggression, but that some North Africans had their hand in the imperialist enterprise. However, be aware that this text might be a bit of a let down, not offering quite what I think it had the potential to deliver.
March 4, 2010
Author Dan Morrison has chosen to discuss Eve M Troutt Powell’s
A Different Shade of Colonialism: Egypt, Great Britain and the Mastery of the Sudan
on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject – The Nile, saying that:
“…Eve Troutt Powell examines a relatively overlooked aspect of colonialism in Africa, and that is Egyptian, rather than European, colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. She looks at Egypt’s relationship with Sudan and how Egypt came to view Sudan as its own dominion. …”
The full interview is available here: http://thebrowser.com/books/interviews/dan-morrison
“…Eve Troutt Powell examines a relatively overlooked aspect of colonialism in Africa, and that is Egyptian, rather than European, colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. She looks at Egypt’s relationship with Sudan and how Egypt came to view Sudan as its own dominion. …”
The full interview is available here: http://thebrowser.com/books/interviews/dan-morrison
July 3, 2026
Eve Troutt-Powell examines the relationships between Sudan, Egypt, Great Britain, and the Ottoman Empire, focusing on the crossroads of nationalism, color, imperialism, and slavery.
How the image of the Sudanese in the collective Egyptian mind was conjured by thinkers, journalists, artists, comedians, and playwrights is particularly intriguing. It is here that we see the profound interplay between Egyptian cultural history and Sudanese society.
This text is not subtle in its engagement with postcolonial theory, heavily featuring the presence of Edward Said, Michel Foucault, Albert Memmi, and Frantz Fanon. It challenges Said on Orientalism and the “a Manichean binary relationship between colonizer and colonized,"
What stood out most was the use of Egyptian comic strips and translated accounts from Egyptian explorers and Ottoman administrators. The individuals featured throughout: Rudolph Pasha, Muhammad Imam al-Abd, Ibrahim Fawzi, Al-Tahtawi, and al-Tunisi are what give the book its compelling quality.
How the image of the Sudanese in the collective Egyptian mind was conjured by thinkers, journalists, artists, comedians, and playwrights is particularly intriguing. It is here that we see the profound interplay between Egyptian cultural history and Sudanese society.
This text is not subtle in its engagement with postcolonial theory, heavily featuring the presence of Edward Said, Michel Foucault, Albert Memmi, and Frantz Fanon. It challenges Said on Orientalism and the “a Manichean binary relationship between colonizer and colonized,"
What stood out most was the use of Egyptian comic strips and translated accounts from Egyptian explorers and Ottoman administrators. The individuals featured throughout: Rudolph Pasha, Muhammad Imam al-Abd, Ibrahim Fawzi, Al-Tahtawi, and al-Tunisi are what give the book its compelling quality.
May 10, 2024
I learned A LOT about the interconnected histories of Egypt, Britain, and Sudan. However, and perhaps this is my fault for not looking too much into the book, I was expecting more perspectives from Sudanese figures. It felt disproportionately Egyptian in the voices featured. Nevertheless, a fascinating read that contextualizes what we're seeing today in Sudan.
February 24, 2020
An absolutely necessary read, especially for those who're interested in understanding race and nationalism in Egypt.
November 22, 2022
Definitely an interesting book though it raises more questions than it does provide answers.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews