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دراسات فى التاريخ الاجتماعي لمصر الحديثة
- GenresHistory
422 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
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February 27, 2015
Gabriel Baer’s Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt covers an impressive array of topics across a time frame that stretches from the reign of Muhammad Ali to the 1952 Revolution and beyond. Although one cannot go as far to say that the essays are unconnected, since many do address similar ideas and refer to previous chapters, there is a lack of an overarching theme that ties everything together, making a general summary difficult. This task is further complicated by the fact that the author’s work is heavy on primary source material and evidence, but somewhat lacking overall in argument. Therefore, since the majority of Baer’s chapters are not particularly complex, the best way to summarize the book is to go through them individually and highlight their key arguments.
The work begins by looking at Egypt’s successful settlement of the nomadic tribes, a phenomenon that the author attributes to increasing social differentiation within the tribes during the 19th century that was facilitated by developments in agriculture and the rise of cash crops, which took away their land and gave them an incentive to become sedentary. The second chapter examines the dissolution of the village community, a process that began under Sa’id Pasha’s reign, as the community’s three major functions, sharing and redistributing common land, collective tax collection, and collective maintenance, came under attack by imperial decrees seeking to systematize and centralize power. The decline in influence of village authorities such as ‘umdas and shayuk, as explored in chapter three, was a more gradual process that was impacted significantly by the British occupation.
Baer makes his first rigorous comparison to the rest of the Arab Ottoman Empire in his fourth chapter, where he analyzes the differences in land reform. The his discussion stems from the premise that Egypt’s agrarian system was more uniform than that of the Ottoman Empire, which maintained feudal vestiges for many decades and thus introduced fewer and less substantial reforms. Egypt’s 1858 Land Law entailed a clearer break from the past than its Ottoman counterpart by giving landholders better security and control over their holdings in the interest of private enterprise. In essence, the Ottomans needed the control that the Egyptians already had, so while Egypt granted rights, the Ottomans placed restrictions. Furthermore, Egypt’s better registration and distribution system meant that foreigners were more interested in snapping up land. This leads the author into a discussion of the waqf system in chapter five, where he outlines the gradual process of addressing the two major issues related to the proliferation of awqaf: that these lands have lower yields in general and that they helped preserve large estates in the hands of a limited number of wealthy individuals. Baer then examines the idea of the “submissiveness of the fellah” that was prevalent in the historiography of the day and argues that this this is a misconception that arose through indigenous and foreign observers overgeneralizing during periods of calm. By presenting evidence of numerous peasant uprisings during his period of study, he does not set out to characterize the Egyptian peasant as particularly rebellious, but instead highlights the dangers of attempting to apply monolithic labels to large social groups.
The author then switches focus to the penal code and narrates the negotiation that took place when reconciling Egyptian and Ottoman legal decrees, highlighting the concessions that Egypt was able to wrest from the Sultan due to European pressures. He also engages the idea that Egyptian laws were, in general, more comprehensive and harsher in terms of punishment. Furthermore, it was not until 1875, he argues, that there was any genuine departure from sharia in the legal code. Shifting once again in his eighth chapter, Baer delves into urbanization and presents an overall portrait of the 19th century that demonstrates how the lack of industrial development slowed urbanization, particularly due to agricultural advancements that incentivized rural life. The urban guild, therefore, disappeared not due to Muhammad Ali’s limited industrialization drives, but “as a result of the influx of European goods and of Europeans settling in Egypt, the change of its commercial system, the growth of its towns, and the reorganization of its administration”. Arguably the author’s most interesting analysis comes in chapter ten, where he outlines the history of slavery in great detail and argues that Egypt’s success in abolishing the practice stemmed not from the decrees issued by a strong central government, but from transformations in the labor market, the collapse of the guilds, developments in agriculture, and European contacts, all of which changed the mentality of Egyptian society and realigned its position vis-a-vis slavery. It is followed by a much drier chapter that looks into the late development of municipal government in Egypt.
Baer attempts to draw everything together in his final chapter, which serves as a conclusion, but the most he can accomplish is to suggest (correctly, in my opinion) that scholars should not force any developments in this era into a dichotomy of “continuity vs. change”. Eschewing overgeneralizations, he postulates a series of mixed results, wherein some elements transformed and others remained the same, none of which necessarily followed a teleological path. His work is signposted unevenly, with some sections containing conclusions that elucidate clearly the points he is attempting to make, and other remaining fairly opaque. On the whole, he offers much more evidence and narrative than argument, and certain sections can feel like rushes of information, collections of any tangentially related “evidence”, and long passages that are exercises in outlining what particular documents said without in-depth analysis. Nonetheless, when taken as a whole, his works paints a vivid picture of social life at all levels that, until its publication, had been obscured by monographs that focused on high politics and the culture of the elite. Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt has been described as a classic in the field and for good reason: although it may disappoint some with its drier style and its lack of emphasis on argument, it stood for many years as a the best and most critical of works on Egypt’s social history and, in many aspects, remains valuable today.
The work begins by looking at Egypt’s successful settlement of the nomadic tribes, a phenomenon that the author attributes to increasing social differentiation within the tribes during the 19th century that was facilitated by developments in agriculture and the rise of cash crops, which took away their land and gave them an incentive to become sedentary. The second chapter examines the dissolution of the village community, a process that began under Sa’id Pasha’s reign, as the community’s three major functions, sharing and redistributing common land, collective tax collection, and collective maintenance, came under attack by imperial decrees seeking to systematize and centralize power. The decline in influence of village authorities such as ‘umdas and shayuk, as explored in chapter three, was a more gradual process that was impacted significantly by the British occupation.
Baer makes his first rigorous comparison to the rest of the Arab Ottoman Empire in his fourth chapter, where he analyzes the differences in land reform. The his discussion stems from the premise that Egypt’s agrarian system was more uniform than that of the Ottoman Empire, which maintained feudal vestiges for many decades and thus introduced fewer and less substantial reforms. Egypt’s 1858 Land Law entailed a clearer break from the past than its Ottoman counterpart by giving landholders better security and control over their holdings in the interest of private enterprise. In essence, the Ottomans needed the control that the Egyptians already had, so while Egypt granted rights, the Ottomans placed restrictions. Furthermore, Egypt’s better registration and distribution system meant that foreigners were more interested in snapping up land. This leads the author into a discussion of the waqf system in chapter five, where he outlines the gradual process of addressing the two major issues related to the proliferation of awqaf: that these lands have lower yields in general and that they helped preserve large estates in the hands of a limited number of wealthy individuals. Baer then examines the idea of the “submissiveness of the fellah” that was prevalent in the historiography of the day and argues that this this is a misconception that arose through indigenous and foreign observers overgeneralizing during periods of calm. By presenting evidence of numerous peasant uprisings during his period of study, he does not set out to characterize the Egyptian peasant as particularly rebellious, but instead highlights the dangers of attempting to apply monolithic labels to large social groups.
The author then switches focus to the penal code and narrates the negotiation that took place when reconciling Egyptian and Ottoman legal decrees, highlighting the concessions that Egypt was able to wrest from the Sultan due to European pressures. He also engages the idea that Egyptian laws were, in general, more comprehensive and harsher in terms of punishment. Furthermore, it was not until 1875, he argues, that there was any genuine departure from sharia in the legal code. Shifting once again in his eighth chapter, Baer delves into urbanization and presents an overall portrait of the 19th century that demonstrates how the lack of industrial development slowed urbanization, particularly due to agricultural advancements that incentivized rural life. The urban guild, therefore, disappeared not due to Muhammad Ali’s limited industrialization drives, but “as a result of the influx of European goods and of Europeans settling in Egypt, the change of its commercial system, the growth of its towns, and the reorganization of its administration”. Arguably the author’s most interesting analysis comes in chapter ten, where he outlines the history of slavery in great detail and argues that Egypt’s success in abolishing the practice stemmed not from the decrees issued by a strong central government, but from transformations in the labor market, the collapse of the guilds, developments in agriculture, and European contacts, all of which changed the mentality of Egyptian society and realigned its position vis-a-vis slavery. It is followed by a much drier chapter that looks into the late development of municipal government in Egypt.
Baer attempts to draw everything together in his final chapter, which serves as a conclusion, but the most he can accomplish is to suggest (correctly, in my opinion) that scholars should not force any developments in this era into a dichotomy of “continuity vs. change”. Eschewing overgeneralizations, he postulates a series of mixed results, wherein some elements transformed and others remained the same, none of which necessarily followed a teleological path. His work is signposted unevenly, with some sections containing conclusions that elucidate clearly the points he is attempting to make, and other remaining fairly opaque. On the whole, he offers much more evidence and narrative than argument, and certain sections can feel like rushes of information, collections of any tangentially related “evidence”, and long passages that are exercises in outlining what particular documents said without in-depth analysis. Nonetheless, when taken as a whole, his works paints a vivid picture of social life at all levels that, until its publication, had been obscured by monographs that focused on high politics and the culture of the elite. Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt has been described as a classic in the field and for good reason: although it may disappoint some with its drier style and its lack of emphasis on argument, it stood for many years as a the best and most critical of works on Egypt’s social history and, in many aspects, remains valuable today.
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