This groundbreaking study illuminates the Egyptian experience of modernity by critically analyzing the foremost medium through which it was articulated: history. The first comprehensive analysis of a Middle Eastern intellectual tradition, "Gatekeepers of the Past" examines a system of knowledge that replaced the intellectual and methodological conventions of Islamic historiography only at the very end of the nineteenth century. Covering more than one hundred years of mostly unexamined historical literature in Arabic, Yoav Di-Capua explores Egyptian historical thought, examines the careers of numerous critical historians, and traces this tradition's uneasy relationship with colonial forms of knowledge as well as with the post-colonial state.

About the Author
Yoav Di-Capua is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Reviews
"The book is extremely ambitious, and the reader will immediately appreciate ... Di-Capua's efforts in undertaking such a monumental task." American Historical Review



Book Information
ISBN 9780520257337
Author Yoav Di-Capua
Format Paperback
Page Count 406
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Weight(grams) 544g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 25mm