Napoleon’s Egypt
got a notice in the NYT “Paperback Row” by Elsa Dixler.
‘NAPOLEON’S EGYPT: Invading the Middle East, by Juan Cole. (Palgrave Macmillan, $16.95.) Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt — the first modern incursion by the West into the Middle East — is often remembered as the beginning of Egyptology or a template for Napoleon’s later campaigns. But Cole, who teaches history at the University of Michigan and blogs about United States policy in the Middle East, presents the invasion and occupation through Egyptian eyes. From this perspective the offensive seems premonitory in its ambitions (Napoleon tried to establish a pro-French representative government and to modernize Cairo) and its results (a brutal insurgency).’
Of course, the hardback is still available and makes a more respectable gift. :-)