NICHOLAS HOPKINS, SOHAIR MEHANNA, AND SALAH EL-HAGGAER, People and Pollution: Cultural Constructions and Social Action in Egypt (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2001). Pp. 215. $27.50.

Extract

Almost immediately, any visitor to Cairo becomes aware of the city's pollution—the bits of organic and inorganic garbage in the gutters, the noxious exhaust of aging mopeds and buses, the discolored canal water, and the unnatural haze that hangs over rooftops. Surely, Egyptians share this awareness. For the authors of People and Pollution: Cultural Constructions and Social Action in Egypt, however, “the issue is not whether there is an environmental awareness in Egypt, but what the nature of that awareness is, how it varies from one setting to another, and above all where it leads” (p. 1).