Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt: The Politics of Hegemony

The Global Middle East

by Sara Salem

This study presents an alternative story of the 2011 Egyptian revolution by revisiting Egypt's moment of decolonisation in the mid-twentieth century. Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt explores the country's first postcolonial project, arguing that the enduring afterlives of anticolonial politics, connected to questions of nationalism, military rule, capitalist development and violence, are central to understanding political events in Egypt today. Through an imagined conversation between Antonio Gramsci and Frantz Fanon, two foundational theorists of anti-capitalism and anticolonialism, Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt focuses on issues of resistance, revolution, mastery and liberation to show how the Nasserist project, created by Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Free Officers in 1952, remains the only instance of hegemony in modern Egyptian history. In suggesting that Nasserism was made possible through local, regional and global anticolonial politics, even as it reproduced colonial ways of governing that continue to reverberate into Egypt's present, this interdisciplinary study thinks through questions of traveling theory, global politics, and resistance and revolution in the postcolonial world.

Genres: History, Egypt, Nonfiction, Africa, Politics, Northern Africa, Academia

312 pages, Hardcover

Published June 18, 2020

Reviews

[Marwan Shalaby]

A truly wonderful read, with a sharp Gramscian analysis on Nasser. Sara's writing style and clear argumentation is really something to look up to :)) She's one of the few authors who give me hope in postcolonial scholarship.

[لبنى]

Absolutely captivating! I’m almost sad I finished this book I didn’t want it to end