WALTER ARMBRUST, Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt, CambridgeStudies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, vol. 102 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1996). Pp. 286. $64.95 cloth, $20.95 paper.

Extract

“Modernization,” or processes of modern socio-political development, and identity formation have been among the most recurrent and pertinent themes of scholarly studies undertaken on 19th- and 20th-century Egypt. Works on intellectual thought; economic, political, and social history; folk culture; and gender implicitly and explicitly grapple with the issue of the country's transition to, maintenance of, struggle with, or rejection of modernity. Modernization has often been understood through a hegemonic nationalist discourse—that is, through governmental rhetoric, the writings of establishment intellectuals, and uncritical examinations of state institutions. Alternative and counter-hegemonic manifestations and representations of modernity have been largely overlooked, which makes Walter Armbrust's anthropological inquiry into Egyptian mass culture an absolutely vital contribution to the study of modern Egypt.