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Forthcoming
Egypt Ignited:How Fossil Capital Arrived on the Nile
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Ebook
Forthcoming
A gripping history of nineteenth century Egypt reveals how steam, debt, and animal viral disease turned the Nile Valley into an early front in the global war over energy and empire
Beginning in the 1820s, Egypt became one of the first non-European countries to pursue steam-driven industrialization after Britain. This new account of 19th-century Egypt traces how fossil capital began in the Nile Valley, entangling imperial ambition, forced dependency, debt and colonialism.
From European engineers and financiers to Pashas, peasants, and plantation workers, Khairy follows the human and environmental toll of industrial modernity. We encounter boilers exploding, oxen dying in polluted canals, rebels executed for resisting machines they believed were powered by underground demons demanding their children's futures.
A sweeping story of empire, extraction, and resistance, this is a vital history of capitalism’s global spread.
Reviews
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The habit of burning fossil fuels has diffused to all corners of the world, but it began on one damp island in the north Atlantic. How did it spread to the rest of humankind? In this masterpiece of historical excavation, Amr Khairy gives us the story for Egypt, the great portal to Africa and Asia: it was the empire that drove coal and steam-power into it. Featuring magical creatures and cattle murrains, packed with fascinating detail, a joy to read, Egypt Ignited is an unmissable companion to the present. This was how the Middle East and the planet were set ablaze.