Napoleon's Egypt: Invading The Middle East - Reenactor.ru

xNAPOLEON’S EGYPTthe Orient rather than “the Middle East.” The title is a recognition that thebook concerns memories and constructions of Egypt, including those written byNapoleon long after he became emperor. As for the subtitle, the profound confusionproduced for contemporary readers by a subtitle such as “invading theOrient” would have outweighed any gains in verisimilitude. I have used thephrase “Middle East” in the text, as well, inasmuch as I am writing twenty-firstcentury English.My late mentor, Marsden Jones, suggested this project to me many yearsago. I was exceedingly fortunate that in 1993 Philippe de Meulenaere broughtout his priceless critical bibliography of eyewitness accounts, and that in recentdecades several rich French memoirs (e.g., those of François Bernoyer, Joseph-Marie Moiret, and Charles Antoine Morand) have been published. I was alsofortunate in that some relevant Arabic materials have been published in recentdecades, including the earliest chronicle by historian ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti(perhaps co-authored with Hasan al-’Attar), the chronicles of Izzet HasanDarendeli and ‘Abdullah al-Sharqawi, and contemporary letters from Yemen.The translations into English of the works of al-Jabarti, by Shmuel Moreh andby a team of scholars under Thomas Philipp and Moshe Perlmann, have beenvery useful to this book. I have always consulted the Arabic text, however, andsometimes have preferred to paraphrase directly from it. I have also used al-Jabarti’s untranslated Muzhir al-Taqdis, which contains material, and pregnantsilences, not present in the other works.I had the good fortune of studying modern Egyptian history at UCLA withAfaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot. Everyone who works in this field is profoundly indebtedto André Raymond, who has revolutionized our understanding of eighteenth-centuryCairo. Henry Laurens has shed loads of illumination on theFrench in Egypt with his own books and articles and his editions of primarytexts. My friends and colleagues Kenneth Cuno, Jane Hathaway, Gabriel Piterburg,Peter Gran, and Daniel Crecelius further taught me through their talksand writings about the Ottoman beylicate and its era in Egypt. Edward Said’swork on Orientalism made possible many of the insights herein.I am deeply indebted to Alessandra Bastagli, my editor at Palgrave Macmillan,for her gentle persistence in pulling this book out of me, for her canny suggestionsabout writing strategies, and for the way her sage blue pencil andsuggestions for additions improved the book. My gratitude also to Alan Bradshaw,Jodie Hockensmith, and Erin Igoe at Palgrave Macmillan for their invaluablehelp. I also want to express warm thanks to David Pervin for recognizingthe promise of this project. Even though they came late to this particular party,