Lumbering State Restless Society Egypt In The

Modern Era Nathan J Brown Shimaa Hatab Amr Adly

download

https://ebookbell.com/product/lumbering-state-restless-society-
egypt-in-the-modern-era-nathan-j-brown-shimaa-hatab-amr-
adly-51906982

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Lumbering State Restless Society Egypt In The Modern Era Nathan J

Brown

https://ebookbell.com/product/lumbering-state-restless-society-egypt-
in-the-modern-era-nathan-j-brown-49158922

Wood Hicks And Bark Peelers A Visual History Of Pennsylvanias Railroad

Lumbering Communities The Photographic Legacy Of William T Clarke
Ronald E Ostman Harry Littell Linda A Ries

https://ebookbell.com/product/wood-hicks-and-bark-peelers-a-visual-
history-of-pennsylvanias-railroad-lumbering-communities-the-
photographic-legacy-of-william-t-clarke-ronald-e-ostman-harry-littell-
linda-a-ries-51830608

The Lumbering Giants Of Windy Pines 1st Edition Netz Mo

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-lumbering-giants-of-windy-pines-1st-
edition-netz-mo-56170924

The Lumbering Giants Of Windy Pines Mo Netz

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-lumbering-giants-of-windy-pines-mo-
netz-56306976
Chinese In The Woods Logging And Lumbering In The American West Sue
Fawn Chung

https://ebookbell.com/product/chinese-in-the-woods-logging-and-
lumbering-in-the-american-west-sue-fawn-chung-46209376

Hidden History Of Bangor From Lumbering Days To The Progressive Era

Reilly

https://ebookbell.com/product/hidden-history-of-bangor-from-lumbering-
days-to-the-progressive-era-reilly-32713322

The Literature Of Spain And Latin America J E Luebering

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-literature-of-spain-and-latin-
america-j-e-luebering-1854634

Authors Of The Enlightenment 1660 To 1800 Je Luebering

https://ebookbell.com/product/authors-of-the-
enlightenment-1660-to-1800-je-luebering-4648668

Native American History Je Luebering

https://ebookbell.com/product/native-american-history-je-
luebering-50839358
LUMBERING STATE, RESTLESS SOCIETY

COLUMBIA STUDIES IN MIDDLE EAST POLITICS

 COLUMBIA STUDIES IN MIDDLE EAST POLITICS
Marc Lynch, Series Editor

Columbia Studies in Middle East Politics presents academically rigorous, well-written,

relevant, and accessible books on the rapidly transforming politics of the Middle East
for an interested academic and policy audience.

The Arab Uprisings Explained: New Contentious Politics in the Middle East,
edited by Marc Lynch

Sectarian Politics in the Gulf: From the Iraq War to the Arab Uprisings, Frederic M. Wehrey

From Resilience to Revolution: How Foreign Interventions Destabilize the Middle East,
Sean L. Yom

Protection Amid Chaos: The Creation of Property Rights in Palestinian Refugee Camps,
Nadya Hajj

Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran, Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar

Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco: Strategies of Centralization and Decentralization,

Janine A. Clark

Jordan and the Arab Uprisings: Regime Survival and Politics Beyond the State, Curtis Ryan

Friend or Foe: Militia Intelligence and Ethnic Violence in the Lebanese Civil War,
Nils Hägerdal
Lumbering State,
Restless Society
EGYPT IN THE MODERN ERA

Nathan J. Brown, Shimaa Hatab,

and Amr Adly

Columbia University Press

New York
 Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2021 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brown, Nathan J., author. | Hatab, Shimaa, author. | Adly, Amr, author.
Title: Lumbering state, restless society : Egypt in the modern era / Nathan J. Brown, Shimaa
Hatab, and Amr Adly.
Other titles: Columbia studies in Middle East politics.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2021] | Series: Columbia studies
in Middle East politics | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021007833 (print) | LCCN 2021007834 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231201704
(hardback) | ISBN 9780231201711 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780231554220 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Egypt—Politics and government—20th century. | Egypt—Politics and
government—21st century. | Egypt—Social conditions—20th century. | Egypt—Social
conditions—21st century. | Egypt—Economic conditions—1952–
Classification: LCC DT107.825 .B76 2021 (print) | LCC DT107.825 (ebook) |
DDC 962.05—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007833
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007834

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America

Cover design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee

Cover photo: © ChameleonsEye / Shutterstock
 To the memory of
Samer Soliman
and to subsequent generations of Egyptians following his path
or forging their own to understand, analyze,
and better Egyptian society and politics.
 CONTENTS

P R E FAC E ix

Chapter One
Multivocal yet Authoritarian Egypt 1

Part I. The Egyptian State 21

Chapter Two
Governing Egypt: The Construction of the Modern
Egyptian State 25

Chapter Three
Between State and Regime: The Evolution of
Egyptian Authoritarianism 44

Part II. Egyptian Society 63

Chapter Four
The Rise and Decay of Social Control—and the Perpetuation
of Authoritarianism 65
 viii
CONTENTS

Chapter Five
Civil Society Organizations: Limited Political Agenda
and Mounting Resistance 92

Chapter Six
Islam and Religion in Egyptian State, Society, and Economy 111

Part III. The Egyptian Economy 145

Chapter Seven
Market Making without Development 147

Chapter Eight
The Military’s Civilian Economy 179

Chapter Nine
The Uprising of 2011 and the New Regime 204

NOTES 235

A SE L E C T I V E G U I D E T O S C HO L A R LY W R I T I N G O N E G Y P T 249

B I B L IO G R A P H Y 259

INDEX 269
 PREFACE

We aim in this book to introduce Egyptian politics to different, if some-

times overlapping, groups: those who know little about Egypt (but want to
learn); those who have little background in the academic study of politics
(and might find an overly scholarly approach full of off-putting jargon);
those who have been trained as political scientists but know little about
Egypt; and finally, those who know Egypt and its politics well (but are ready
for fresh perspectives).
Addressing these different audiences has led us to be careful in our choice
of terminology (explaining those terms we feel we need, such as “corporat-
ism”), judicious in our introduction of new concepts (such as “habitus econ-
omy”), and still bold in some of our interpretations—so that we do not
write incomprehensibly to those with no background but offer insights to
those with deep prior understanding. We have adopted a comparative
approach in framing much of our analysis without the formality of a com-
parative research design; that is, we draw on examples and comparisons
from other cases in order to frame our presentation of Egypt and highlight
its broader implications but do not present this as following any explicitly
comparative methodology. And we have marked off areas in which our
interpretation leads us a bit off the beaten path without positioning our-
selves explicitly in every scholarly debate that has taken place.
 x
P R E FA C E

While writing for such different audiences can be challenging, the task
has emphatically not been complicated by an attempt to bring together three
different scholarly voices. Our expertise and understandings have been
complementary rather than contradictory. One of us (Nathan J. Brown) has
worked on a variety of subjects (most recently on religion, law, and judicial
structures). He took the lead on most of those sections that focus on for-
mal political structures (mainly in part 1), as well as in editing the entire
manuscript for consistency of style and usage. Shimaa Hatab was the pri-
mary drafter for most of part 2, drawing on her expertise in political mobi-
lization and social movements in Egypt and in comparative perspectives.
Amr Adly brought his expertise in political economy and development,
leading our efforts in most of part 3. We all commented on each other’s
drafts, adding material where we had special expertise, and all pitched in
on topics, such as religion or the 2011 uprising, where our expertise over-
lapped. The argument presented in this volume is the result of discussion
among the authors and reflects our consensus view. Our individual views
on some issues varied; we put this forward as a collegial project but not as
a sum of individual contributions. The result is thus an integrated work
rather than an anthology. All three of us have conducted primary research
in Egypt, observed the society over time, and participated in international
scholarly discussions about Egyptian politics in comparative perspective.
The purpose of the book is in part to draw on rich bodies of social sci-
ence scholarship and political analysis produced in the Arab world, the
United States, and Europe. In that way, the book incorporates recent schol-
arship on Egypt but also addresses broader questions in political science
involving regime type, social movements, and economic development. But
the book is not merely a summary. We have worked to develop and advance
a persuasive and coherent presentation of modern Egyptian politics, soci-
ety, and economy—and to do so not by walling Egypt off from compara-
tive analysis, but by treating Egypt in terms of concepts and debates that
have proven useful for understanding politics in terms of global trends and
broader phenomena.
That broader perspective does not lead us to expect to locate Egypt as
moving along a single path. Indeed, global politics seems to be moving in
different directions at the same time: toward a more liberal direction and
away from it. Politics is growing more participatory but not always more
stable or democratic. Authoritarian regimes have tumbled in Latin
 xi
P R E FA C E

America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, where they have been succeeded by a
wide variety of both authoritarian and democratic regimes, as well as sev-
eral kinds of hybrids. States have grappled with a desire to control and man-
age societies characterized by growing complexity in the creative ways
that people organize, mobilize, and spread information—and state control
has sometimes withered but other times grown stronger. Socialism and
communism have decayed or collapsed so thoroughly that for a long time
there was talk of a “Washington consensus” among international actors who
argued that free market economic reform would raise any floundering econ-
omy. But that consensus has now crumbled without a return to the past.
Alternatives to political democracy, social pluralism, and economic liber-
alism have arisen—but democracy, pluralism, and liberal economics have
not disappeared.
This ferment spans continents, but we will focus on how the trends have
operated in Egypt. The strong authoritarian, state corporatist, and social-
ist regime that appeared so strong a half century ago gradually loosened
and gave way to one that sometimes promised democracy, free association,
and economic reform—but delivered none of these things.
While we will focus on Egypt, our understanding is necessarily compar-
ative. A number of countries have sparked scholarly interest in the way
they have confronted a similar array of problems, and we seek to present
our analysis in a manner that draws on—and contributes to—more gen-
eral ideas about regimes, development, social movements, and state struc-
tures. Brazil, Hungary, the Philippines, Poland, Argentina, and Korea have
all diverged from the paths of democracy, pluralism, and liberal economic
development (or if they have generally followed some of these paths, they
have experienced unexpected bumps and detours). But the divergences have
been very different in degree and kind. Understandings of the changes have
sometimes been all too teleological—asking how democracy, pluralism, and
prosperity can be realized instead of asking what trends are actually
operating—with the result that scholars are sometimes better able to explain
what did not happen than what did.
If we understand that global trends show divergences as well as common-
alities, we are similarly alert to the different ways that Egyptians experi-
ence, view, and act in politics. Our openness to diversity leads us to insist
that Egypt cannot be seen as speaking with a single voice or as an embodi-
ment of a single will.
 xii
P R E FA C E

After an introduction that will give the necessary background on Egyp-

tian society and politics, our book presents its analysis in three sections:
one on the state and regime type; one on society; and one on the economy.
In each section, we structure our inquiry around a pressing debate among
social scientists that will frame our understanding of Egypt. And we select
non-Egyptian cases in each section for comparative purposes, to shed light
on the Egyptian case but also on the general phenomenon. For regime type,
we do not ask why Egypt is not democratic. Instead, we ask what regime it
has and how that regime sustains itself (when it does). We compare Egypt
primarily to cases in Europe to understand what factors shape a particular
country’s trajectory. For society, we examine what happens when state cor-
poratism breaks down, and we seek to understand how social movements
operate in an environment that is far from pluralistic. We compare Egypt
primarily to Latin America and other regions to gain a more general under-
standing of these questions. Finally, we consider the evolution of Egypt’s
economy away from socialism but absent any particular alternative direc-
tion. Concepts like “crony capitalism” and the “East Asian model” animate
many discussions of economic development. However, they do not always
provide the most helpful way to understand economic policy making and
performance. In the economic section, we compare Egypt primarily to the
East Asian cases.
We hope that our efforts in analyzing and explaining Egyptian politics
will meet the interests of the diverse audiences for whom we write. Our task
is a large one, but it is not boundless, since there is one audience we do not
mention. By writing in English, and by assuming little prior knowledge of
Egypt on the part of the reader, we are not writing for an Egyptian audi-
ence. Or rather, we are not doing so in this edition of the book. But we also
plan to contribute to Arabic-language discussion about Egypt. Our inten-
tion is to modify the present text in order to develop an analysis that is
appropriate for an Egyptian (and broader Arabic-speaking) audience—
those who will need a bit less historical background but who may still find
some insights into the politics of their homeland.
In writing this book, we have benefited from much moral and even a bit
of material encouragement. The three of us were initially brought together
through overlapping experiences with the nascent Arab Political Science
Network (APSN); Ahmed Morsy of the APSN has quietly cheered us along.
We were also hosted at workshops run by the Project on Middle East
 xiii
P R E FA C E

Political Science (POMEPS) and the Department of Political Science at the

American University in Cairo. Marc Lynch, the director of POMEPS, has
been encouraging of this project from its inception, carefully reading two
drafts of the manuscript—for which readers should thank him as much as
the authors! POMEPS sponsored a session in which we discussed the proj-
ect outline; Tarek Masoud and Lisa Anderson provided some valuable early
guidance at that session. When we had a full manuscript, we held a work-
shop at the American University in Cairo at which we subjected Mustapha
Kamel al-Sayyid, Cherine Shams, Samer Shehata, Ayman Ismail, Mohamed
Fahmy Menza, Nadine Sika, and Omar Ghannam to a daylong discussion
of our draft. Rosalie Rubio, Mark Berlin, and Aparna Ravi helped us pol-
ish our prose, iron out wrinkles in our argument, and communicate our
ideas more clearly; Caelyn Cobb led a supportive team at Columbia Uni-
versity Press that included copyeditor Ryan Perks and production editor
Kathryn Jorge. The Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washing-
ton University funded some critical editorial support as we worked to fash-
ion our ideas into presentable prose. Sultan Alamer helped us enormously
with the index.
The dedication to this book speaks largely for itself, but we cannot resist
a final word: Samer is deeply missed, but we hope those who knew him find
this book a fitting tribute to his legacy.
 Chapter One

MULTIVOCAL YET AUTHORITARIAN EGYPT

A reader who perused different scholarly tomes on modern Egypt might

wonder if each book actually described the same place. Is Egypt a country
where economics drives all politics, or one where all economic questions
are answered based on a shifting political foundation? Or does religion come
first? Is it a place where a strong state and stable regime, controlled by a suc-
cession of canny authoritarian rulers, has entrenched itself so deeply in
power that it cannot be dislodged? If it is, then was the uprising of 2011—
which led the country into a protracted period of uncertainty—a complete
anomaly? An exceptional interlude? A harbinger of a new era? Or a strug-
gle on the surface that never actually challenged the “deep state”? Was the
2013 overthrow of the post-2011 system a return to normal or something
altogether new? Is Egypt a place where the state can be equated with a sin-
gle ruler (as in “Nasser’s Egypt”), or one with a complex web of institutions
that each have to be taken seriously as political actors? Or, more radically,
is it actually a place where one should start by analyzing not the state but
the society—Islamist groups, social movements, new and old media, or the
different components of the country’s private sector? Does Egypt’s foray into
socialism in the years after 1950, and its retreat from that system in the 1970s,
represent a series of stark reversals or a camouflage for continuity? Is it a
mark of the state’s strength or its weakness?
 2
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

Our answer to every single one of these questions is a qualified yes. We

are not contradicting ourselves: Egyptian politics exhibits many diverse fea-
tures, many of which are in tension with each other and all of which vary
considerably over time. This book is an effort to guide readers through
Egyptian politics in a manner that is clear and fair to the distinctive fea-
tures of Egypt but also alert to the ways in which Egypt resembles other
societies. In the process, we will be using many of the insights gathered by
political scientists to understand the sorts of questions we are asking about
state formation, regime type, social movements, and political economy. We
will try to understand how strong states emerge; how different regime types
arise and evolve; when and how various kinds of social organizations emerge
and advocate political agendas; and how wealth and power interact.
Indeed, using such comparative and conceptual tools will allow us to
present a consistent answer to the questions with which we open this chap-
ter. Egypt’s modern state has built strong institutions; it has also been led
by regimes that tried to master, control, and lead those institutions with
some sustained but no permanent success. So the image of a strong state
has validity. But that state is also unwieldy. We will thus tell the story of
the state’s emergence and of the attempts of different regimes to steer and
manage it.
The state has been built while members of Egypt’s society have peri-
odically developed strong formal and informal ways to organize them-
selves. So the image of a state struggling to control a restive society holds
as well, though more at some times than at others. Egypt’s rulers have tried
to regulate, constrain, and even combat many of those efforts, reaching a
peak in what we will describe as “state corporatism” (a system in which the
state establishes specific organizations to represent various parts of society
and then coordinates among these groups)—again, with some sustained
but no permanent success. At its height, the Egyptian state controlled
most of the economy directly, backing off in recent decades while avoid-
ing full liberalization.
These trends—the attempt by rulers to exert control over various forces
that escape, steer, resist, and cope with that control—have been more pro-
nounced since 2011, when a national uprising led to a tumultuous period of
upheaval followed by a reassertion of tight central control.
The story of Egypt as we tell it does not begin with one actor (ruler,
regime, or state), nor is it shaped by one factor (religion or economics).
 3
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

Instead, it is a story of shifting interaction among them: a series of rulers

who have built or remolded regimes that struggle to control a sprawling
state apparatus; a state apparatus that has grown into new areas of society
and economy but has been forced in recent decades into a partial retreat;
and Egyptian social actors who have organized with varying success and
across a variety of fields (politics, economics, and religion) in different ways
to shape the state and its policies. We tell of an Egypt that speaks with many
voices but in which one voice—that of an authoritarian leadership—strives
to be louder than all others.
And it is a story that describes a slow arc of change: of growing state con-
trol followed by uneven retreat, and of growing authoritarianism that has
to run hard to stay in place in the face of a sometimes restive society.
In presenting our analysis, we strive to deliver a comprehensive view of
Egypt today, drawing from and contributing to broader debates in politi-
cal science. We work to show how authoritarianism, corporatism, and
socialism came to shape Egyptian politics, society, and economy—and how
they have decayed without resulting in a liberal democratic order. And we
will show that Egyptian politics is less the product of a single force than of
the interplay among many leading forces.
Egypt is not the only country that presents political analysts with a con-
fusing array of choices about where to start and which forces to listen to.
We seek to explore politics by exploring Egypt, and vice versa. And in this
we are aided by the fact that many of the trends we see in Egypt manifest
themselves globally in a variety of societies, allowing us to develop a strong
comparative focus.
Our comparative gaze will shift depending on the topic. When we con-
sider the emergence of the modern Egyptian state, we will look to early
modern Europe, as well as to states formed under imperial rule, to anchor
our understanding. When we turn to Egyptian society, we will draw on
Latin American societies that have experienced similar struggles over how
society interacts with state structures. And when we focus on political econ-
omy, will offer comparisons with other liberalizing countries, as well as
those in East Asia often cited as models of market- and export-led develop-
ment. Our task will not be to show how Egypt is exactly like these other
countries, but to use these comparisons to point out both commonalities
and puzzles. In economics, for instance, Egypt has adopted many of the
liberalizing policies employed by countries in Latin America, Eastern
 4
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

Europe, and East Asia, but without resulting in a liberal economy. We will
probe these divergent outcomes.

MODERN EGYPT: STATE, SOCIETY, AND ECONOMY

In one fundamental sense, the Egyptian state, society, and economy are as
old as can be: these entities have existed over all the millennia for which
written records exist. We begin our story, however, not with pharaohs, Nile
floods, and pyramids, but in the modern era, which is to say the past two
centuries. In this book, we will focus almost all of our attention (with only
a few exceptions) on the past seven decades, beginning in the middle of the
twentieth century.
The reason for this focus on the modern period is that some fundamen-
tal transformations that took place since the early nineteenth century have
shaped how we should approach understanding Egypt. That dividing line
is arbitrary in some ways, because important political, social, and economic
trends developed slowly over time; the Egyptian state of the nineteenth cen-
tury was built on the foundation of what came before. But the year 1800
can be used as a convenient marking point (and most, but not all, accounts
of modern Egyptian history begin with the French occupation of the coun-
try in 1798 or the rise of the dynasty of Muhammad Ali in the early nine-
teenth century).
Prior to that point, Egypt was governed as a partially autonomous prov-
ince of the Ottoman Empire, a multinational power covering much of the
Middle East and southwestern Europe with its capital in Istanbul, in present-
day Turkey. Egypt was primarily an agrarian society before 1800, with
most agricultural production consumed locally (that is, most was designed
to meet subsistence needs), though there was some national trade in sur-
plus production as well as some involvement in long-distance trade. The
state’s role in most Egyptians’ lives—especially the vast majority, who lived
outside Cairo—was limited. Basic services such as education, health care,
and housing were not state affairs. Even taxation operated inefficiently and
unevenly.
It was Egypt’s position in world trade routes that led France to invade in
1798, as a way to curb the sway of its rival (the British Empire) over global
commerce and especially traffic between Europe and India. While the
French were evicted after three years under combined British, Ottoman,
 5
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

and Egyptian pressure, Egypt did not revert to direct Ottoman control.
While the Ottoman Empire claimed to still govern Egypt, a new autono-
mous dynasty arose in Cairo in the wake of the French occupation, led
by Muhammad Ali, the leader of a military force the Ottomans had
brought in (ironically, to shore up their own control) from Albania. Quickly
establishing his control over Egypt, Muhammad Ali began an ambitious
program of economic and military expansion to neighboring territories;
building more effective taxation, harnessing Egyptian labor more centrally
(and even conscripting Egyptians into the army) to support expansion;
encouraging the cultivation of crops that could be marketed internation-
ally; making attempts to foster Egyptian manufacturing under state com-
mand; and launching expeditions into neighboring areas.
We will examine this program and its repercussions more fully in the
following chapter. For now, we will note that Muhammad Ali’s efforts ulti-
mately brought him into conflict with various countervailing forces: the
Ottoman Empire, intense European pressure, and fiscal limitations. In the
face of these combined pressures, the new regime was forced to scale back
its ambitions. The dynasty was restricted to Egyptian territory and some
of its economic and military projects were dismantled.
Muhammad Ali’s descendants still made an effort to use their political
control in support of political strengthening and economic development
within Egypt. In the second half of the nineteenth century, they pursued a
series of reforms and projects (such as deepening irrigation canals so that
Egyptian land could be farmed in the summer, when the Nile River was
low; encouraging the cultivation of cotton for export; and building a trans-
portation system of railroads and ports so that Egypt could send that crop
to Europe). Those Egyptians able to amass land grew quite wealthy, as did
those involved in trade (some of whom were foreign).
This program—which included ambitious urban construction and the
digging of the Suez Canal—was quite expensive, ultimately resulting (as we
will see in chapter 2) in bankruptcy and European financial control. That
was followed in 1882 by military occupation by Great Britain. The British
claimed to be restoring the ruling dynasty in Egypt, accepting that Egypt,
while autonomous, was still part of the Ottoman Empire. So the British
occupation worked through existing arrangements rather than replacing
them. But British authorities forced Egypt’s rulers to cut back much of their
ambitious program of public works (especially those unconnected with
 6
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

irrigation and agriculture) and resisted calls to invest in new areas (such as
education). When Britain found itself at war with the Ottoman Empire in
World War I, it declared a protectorate over Egypt and mobilized Egyptian
supplies and even people to support its war effort. The resulting burdens,
and Britain’s clear plans to increase its domination over Egypt, led to a pop-
ular uprising at the end of the war, forcing the British to grant the country
partial independence in 1922.
In 1923, Fuad (the descendant of Muhammad Ali then governing Egypt)
proclaimed himself king and promulgated a constitution that allowed for
competitive parliamentary elections. Subsequent decades saw tussling
between nationalist political parties (the largest one, the Wafd, emerging
from leadership of the postwar popular uprising against the British occu-
pation), with the monarchy and the British still playing strong roles in
Egyptian politics. In the 1930s, increasing education and urbanization
attracted a growing middle class to politics. The 1940s witnessed the rise of
ideological movements of various stripes (the religious Muslim Brother-
hood, nationalist Young Egypt, and some leftist groups), who saw organi-
zations and demonstrations outside of the electoral process as the most
effective way to realize their vision for Egypt. Yet even as this agitation was
growing, the Egyptian state was becoming more powerful. Its rulers finally
negotiated a treaty with Britain in 1936 that removed many (but not all) of
the vestiges of the British occupation. They also threw off the
“capitulations”—a set of agreements allowing foreigners in Egypt to be gov-
erned by the laws of their home countries instead of Egyptian law (and
thus making taxation or the passing of laws protecting Egyptian industry
from foreign imports quite difficult). World War II (which Egypt did not
enter directly, though it served as the site of some battles and hosted Brit-
ish troops) led to some additional emergency measures (such as price con-
trols and arbitration of relations between workers and owners in Egypt’s
emerging industrial sector) that rendered the state much more of an active
presence in the Egyptian economy. Likewise, by the mid-twentieth century,
the Egyptian state was a far more intrusive presence in Egyptian society
than it had been during the British occupation.
But the story of these decades is not simply one of state growth. New
social actors were forming, some organizing formally through syndicates,
unions, and other bodies (and some remaining informal) and asserting
themselves into the political arena more forcefully. Large landowners, for
 7
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

instance, played powerful roles individually (in the parliament or through

access to top officials) as well as through their own syndicates. They pressed
for policies that maximized their profits, especially from the international
trade of cotton crops. The new groups that focused on the middle class, such
as the Muslim Brotherhood, stepped up their activities and even formed
paramilitary groups that led volunteers in support of the Palestinian
cause in the 1948 war over the establishment of the State of Israel on
Egypt’s eastern border. State investment in public works and a growing
private industrial sector created a working class (especially in the textile,
construction, and transportation sectors) that became increasingly disil-
lusioned with the institutionalized political parties, forged alliances with
radical social forces, and organized strikes against foreign employers and
financiers. Rising education encouraged the formation of vibrant cultural
societies that laid the groundwork for a series of new civil society groups,
including feminist organizations. Alongside older women’s organizations
anchored in the narrow elite, the newer groups focused on rights to uni-
versal suffrage and socioeconomic issues that produced women’s subor-
dinate position in society. Many of these new groups shared a strong
nationalist orientation, as Egyptians feeling constrained by international
colonial capitalism led calls for an “Egyptianization” of the economy and
the construction of national industries. Others focused on the political
struggle, demanding that British troops (still occupying the Suez Canal)
leave the country—and some even launching raids against British bases.
This growing activity, while it led to increasing political contention,
nonetheless left the regime itself untouched, even as it struggled to respond
to (or contain) popular demands. This changed in 1952, when the army, one
part of the growing state apparatus, proved able to reconfigure the system.
A group of officers overthrew the monarchy and, after some hesitation,
declared the event a “revolution,” deciding to reconstruct the political sys-
tem. Their leader, Gamal `Abd al-Nasser (whom we will call “Nasser” for
short, following general English usage), became president as the officers’
project gradually widened from political reform to a much larger set of eco-
nomic, social, and foreign policy goals. Insisting on a global role for an
independent Egypt (which evolved into a claim to leadership of the entire
Arab world), the emerging regime was highly nationalistic. Economically,
it pursued the further Egyptianization of the economy through national-
ization of foreign-owned capital while extending support to Egyptian
 8
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

private enterprises. But while Nasserism began with state support for indus-
trialization, it evolved into socialism, with most large economic enter-
prises nationalized and many social services provided by the state; it also
resulted in a single political party, the Arab Socialist Union, which sought
to organize the entire society in support of the regime’s revolutionary pro-
gram. Harsh authoritarian measures were deployed to enforce the new sys-
tem and autonomous movements (such as the Muslim Brotherhood and
the communists) were suppressed.
While that effort produced great changes in Egyptian politics, society,
and economy, it began to run into trouble after a decade and a half. Egypt’s
defeat in the 1967 war with Israel, coupled with Nasser’s death in 1970,
marked a crisis of Nasserism. But more was at stake than military defeat
and the death of a single leader. The economic achievements of Nasserism
seemed to be stalling; the welfare services it promised were proving bur-
densome, and social groups (workers and students, for instance) who had
been organized by the regime were rediscovering an independent and crit-
ical voice.
The 1970s thus saw the beginning of a retrenchment and diminution—
but not a repudiation—of the Nasserist experiment. The sole political party
gave way to a multiparty system dominated by Nasser’s successors (Anwar
al-Sadat and Hosni Mubarak), and some authoritarian measures were
relaxed. Socialism gradually gave way to a relaxation of restrictions on the
private sector and the rules governing foreign investment. And some
social movements were able to form or revive themselves (like the Muslim
Brotherhood). But every step seemed uncertain and ambivalent, leading to
a loosening of the system rather than an abandonment of it.
Indeed, it is this pattern of change—whereby construction of a strong
state, authoritarian system, socialist economy, and close control over all
aspects of social activity gave way to a series of ambiguous arrangements—
that draws our attention in this book. In 2011, those ambiguous arrange-
ments drew the attention of the millions of Egyptians who participated in
a national uprising under the slogan “The People Want the Fall of the
Regime.” The slogan made clear what so many wished to abandon while
ensuring that there was no consensus about what should replace it. We seek
in this book to explore not only the evolution of Egyptian politics from Nas-
serism to a semi-authoritarian system, but why that system came under
such severe attack in 2011 and what has happened since.
 9
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

CACOPHONOUS EGYPT

As should be clear from this brief account, Egyptians have often disagreed
and struggled over how their country should be governed. Egypt can be
confusing—and much analysis misses the mark—because there are many
who claim to speak for the country. Analysts are often inclined to listen to
a single source. We seek to remedy that by understanding Egypt as a com-
plex state and society.
Many times when Egypt is discussed, an analyst will refer to the coun-
try by the name of the leader. It is as if Egypt speaks with one voice and is
a product of one will. “Al-Sisi’s Egypt” is authoritarian, “Sadat’s Egypt”
made peace with Israel, and so on. It is not surprising that such shorthand
is used. Egypt’s presidents are powerful figures, and they certainly claim
to speak and act for all of Egyptian society. If one does a bit of historical
digging—say, by looking back at Egyptian newspapers from the 1960s or
1970s—one would get the impression from the public record that the presi-
dent’s word was uncontested and final. But we wish to present a far broader
sample of Egyptian political voices.
And we run into another problem as well: basic terminology is often con-
troversial. Those who argue about the best political direction for the coun-
try disagree about which terms should be used and what they mean. Words
are connected to politics.
When scholars use words like “authoritarian” or “revolution,” they often
disagree on what they mean, but they generally justify their choices by the
clarity offered by their favored definition. A clear definition of “revolution,”
for instance, should serve the purpose of telling us what a revolution is and
what it is not, so that we can explain why or when such events happen. But
when the arguments are not just among scholars but among contending
political forces, the choice of terms is connected not just to analytical clar-
ity but to political values (of course, such values are a part of many schol-
arly writings as well).
So many of the terms we need to use are loaded, and some are espe-
cially loaded in the case of political debates among Egyptians. In Egypt
today, the term “revolution” is generally applied by those who want to
emphasize the strongly popular nature of a radical change. Was the 1919
revolt against the British a revolution? What about the 1952 overthrow of
the monarchy? In Egypt, to refer to the events of 1919 as an “uprising”
 10
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

rather than “revolution” can be taken as a dismissal of the nationalist

struggle against British imperialism; to refer to 1952 as a “coup” is to cast
doubt on its claim to legitimacy. Likewise, if one refers to the events of 2013
as a “coup” rather than a “revolution” against the Muslim Brotherhood,
which had won the previous year’s presidential elections, it is taken as a
sharp declaration of one’s political inclinations. What is at issue is not sim-
ply a dictionary definition, but one’s political positions vis-à-vis these
events.
In this book, we will write as scholars and try to follow definitions that
are precise—but we will note the political power and emotional meaning
of certain words among those who study Egypt, and the even deeper dis-
agreements in political discussions among rival camps in Egypt.
And we will try to avoid the tendency to view Egyptian politics as some-
thing that is projected from a single strong leader. In this we are not deny-
ing the centrality of the presidency to Egyptian political life. But neither are
we starting exclusively there. Instead, our analysis incorporates Egyptian
society by looking at politics from a variety of vantage points, not simply
from the top down. Our leading characters, then, are not merely presidents
but also bureaucrats, officers, judges, feminists, trade unionists, activists,
investors, and farmers. We will ask not merely what the leader thinks and
does but also how Egyptian state institutions have been built and now oper-
ate; how Egyptian society is organized and how social actors behave; and
how the economy functions and economic policy is made.
As we address these questions, we will be alert to some larger themes,
ones far broader than the Egyptian political experience. We will be mindful
of the fact that Egyptian politics has almost always been authoritarian,
that its leaders are not fully accountable to any kind of democratic mecha-
nism. In that way, the Egyptian political system resembles that of most other
societies in world history, where authoritarianism (broadly defined) has
been the rule and democracy the exception. But authoritarian systems,
while they lack fully democratic checks on their rulers, still show great vari-
ety, and they evolve considerably over time.
Egypt, for instance, has some very strong institutions—the military, var-
ious internal security and intelligence services, the judiciary, and even the
official Islamic religious establishment. Egyptians have shown varying signs
of social activism and powerful groups have tried to affect official policy.
Egypt also has had a series of elections—ones in which the opposition can
 11
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

often run (but generally is not allowed to win). It shares some of these
features with certain systems but not others. We will compare Egypt to
other authoritarian systems to see what is distinctive about Egypt and what
it tells us about the varieties of authoritarianism.
Similarly, Egyptian society has been organized in ways that have been
heavily regulated by the state. At its height in the 1960s, state regulation
became sufficiently rigorous and intense that it can be called “state corpo-
ratism” (a term we explore in more depth in chapter 4), a system in which
almost all forms of organization, ranging from agricultural cooperatives
to student unions, were controlled by the state or the sole political party at
the time. But Egypt has also seen state controls that operate far more loosely,
and even a recent mass uprising that brought the political order to its knees
and left an indelible imprint on the society. We will compare the way that
state and society interact in Egypt, keeping an eye on similar systems
elsewhere.
And the Egyptian economy has also gone through phases of socialism
and attempted liberalization. Yet even when Egypt’s rulers have used the
language of economic liberalization, the state’s role has remained quite
strong, formally as well as informally. Still, non-state structures, informal
mechanisms of coordination, and networks of families, friends, and kin
shaped much of Egypt’s variegated private sector. We will trace the role of
important economic actors, both state and non-state. Some, like business-
men, will be familiar to anyone trying to understand economic policy mak-
ing. But others, such as the military, will be a bit more unusual.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

We proceed first, in part 1, to understand the Egyptian state and the regime.
In part 2, we focus on Egyptian society. And in part 3, we turn to the Egyp-
tian economy. Our purpose is not to examine these topics in isolation but
to add progressively to our analysis, so that we see how state, society, and
economy have interacted. And in the final chapter we will use the under-
standing we gain to explore the tumultuous period since 2011.
With the purpose of understanding Egypt in comparative perspective,
each chapter begins with a question posed in general terms and amenable
to comparative analysis while also allowing the authors to advance an inte-
grated understanding of Egyptian politics, society, and economy. We will
 12
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

begin with a focus on politics and the regime. In chapter 2, we will ask where
strong states come from. While Egypt is an old society with a governing
apparatus that goes back millennia, the modern Egyptian state—with its
strong presence in all aspects of social and economic life; its extensive
bureaucracy; and its complex structures for educating Egyptians, preach-
ing to them, housing them, adjudicating their disputes, and so on—was
built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Scholars have often assumed that state building is the result of two related
processes. In the first, Europeans built the first modern states on their home
continent, and in the second, Europeans and their imitators spread the
model throughout the world. It is therefore quite common in comparative
scholarship to assume that most non-European states are weak.
This process helps us understand certain general aspects of state for-
mation, but Egypt fits neither of these situations well—or rather, the pro-
cess as it has played out in Egypt partakes of a distinctive combination of
these two paths. This chapter will show that the Egyptian state was not
born in a single moment or created in an act of intentional design. Instead,
it is a set of effects, many of them unintended, that stem from long-term
social and political trends, a history of imperialism and of independent
state building, the creation over an extended period of an extensive and
intrusive set of state apparatuses, and a series of regime strategies, many
of them ad hoc in nature. Chapter 2 will show state formation as an out-
come of struggles over sovereignty and state control at the national and
international levels; the evolution of major state structures (the presi-
dency, political parties, the military); and the effects (often unintended) of
various Egyptian rulers and regimes and the sequence of regime type. In
these ways, Egyptian state formation will be shown to more closely resem-
ble the European example in some of its evolutionary and competitive
dimensions while still having some distinctive aspects, especially with
regard to the deep impact of imperialism on the timing and the contours
of institutional development.
In chapter 3, we will ask how authoritarian systems operate. This is a
question that scholars often ask in different ways, but we will argue that we
cannot focus only on long-term processes (since they cannot explain much
change over time), nor only on the short-term question of why rulers build
regimes as they do (since doing so comes close to assuming that the sys-
tem is whatever any particular ruler wants). We will instead combine
 13
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

long-term and short-term analysis, viewing authoritarian systems as the

products of evolution over time.
An earlier generation of scholars often focused on the socioeconomic
conditions under which authoritarian rule arose, showing much less inter-
est in how these systems formally operated. When they turned their atten-
tion to institutions, they often focused on obvious ruling structures, such
as the military and ruling parties, and treated other institutions as weak or
uninteresting. This is reflected in popular discussions as well, with talk of
a “deep state” in which a small group of senior leaders wield power behind
the scenes. Chapter 3 offers the idea of a “wide state” by looking at the Egyp-
tian system as a product, not of a single will or conscious design, but of an
accretion of actions by various actors—rulers, but also institutions and
social and political forces. In one sense, there is a deep state in Egypt. But
it is not all-powerful—its various components are sometimes at odds with
each other and its centerpiece, the presidency, has played a shifting role. Not
only should its ability to act coherently not be exaggerated; its mastery of
the levers of the vast state apparatus is clumsy at best. And, at critical
moments (most notably but not exclusively 2011), its ability to control Egyp-
tian society and politics has been challenged.
And beyond the collection of entities that comprise the deep state lies a
vast array of state structures that extends far into Egyptian society. Almost
all can be shaped or steered by the mechanisms of the deep state but most
also possess varying levels of autonomy. Judicial bodies have struggled to
attain some level of fiscal independence as well as some control of appoint-
ments within their own ranks. The state religious establishment now selects
its own senior leadership.
Of course, the presidency is still in a central position, and when push
comes to shove, it has ways to override any law or procedure to impose its
will. But push rarely comes to shove, and critical state institutions have real-
ized a degree of internal autonomy and social and political forces can
sometimes hem in the presidency’s options or act independently of its will.
The presidency manages the state apparatus by appointing individuals to
key positions (such as the prosecutor general or the chief editors of state-
owned press outlets), practicing co-optation (doling out higher salaries,
plum appointments, or other benefits to key individuals or institutions), and
fostering institutional duplication (with an array of courts to use if one
proves unreliable, overlapping security services, and so on).
 14
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

The analysis in part 1 will thus explain the origin of Egypt’s state and
describe something of its structure and the regimes that have led it. We
will move outside the state in part 2 to examine Egyptian society. But
we will not leave the state and the regime behind.
The Egyptian state has exerted tremendous energies in organizing Egyp-
tian society, but we will show in part 2 that those efforts have shifted over
the years and with varying degrees of success. One chapter will probe how
much the state can mold society from the perspective of the state and
regime; one will examine these efforts from the perspective of society; and
a third chapter will focus specifically on religion as an important field for
political, social, and even economic activity.
Specifically, chapter 4 will focus on the periods in the third quarter of
the twentieth century when what we call a “state corporatist” system was
built by the regime but then began to decay. Under state corporatism, the
regime used a shifting blend of repression and inducements to fold all social
organization and activity into state-controlled bodies or into the sole polit-
ical party. This system was imposed upon society at the same time as much
private property was nationalized and extensive welfare benefits were prom-
ised by the state. In short, authoritarianism, state corporatism, and social-
ism all marched together. Beginning in the 1970s, however, all three begin
to loosen a little. The regime became more tolerant of opposition—within
certain limits. Exclusive corporatist structures began to decay. And there
was a retreat from socialism. But these trends reflected more the evolution
of the authoritarian regime rather than a sudden change in the regime’s
nature or structure. The Egyptian experience will be analyzed in compar-
ative perspective, especially as it relates to corporatist arrangements in Latin
America, as almost every regime that came to power in Latin America in
the 1930s and 1940s developed corporatist ties with different social groups.
Chapter 5 will shift the balance to the period after the regime’s control
loosened—to some extent—and social organization became more active
and various, though still within sharp limits. What happens in societies
when state corporatism falters and decays? Most understandings of the
end of authoritarianism are drawn from what scholars (and policy mak-
ers) have come to call “the transition paradigm,” in which authoritarian
regimes decay, collapse, and are replaced by democratic ones, often by
various actors coming together to agree on democratic rules. The end of
 15
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

state corporatism is often equated with regime change. But what if state
corporatism does not end but slowly and only partially decays? And what
if the regime stays in place? This pattern is actually quite common. And it
fits Egypt, where post-corporatist liberalization politics did not lead to
fully-fledged democratization or trigger mere repression. What happened
and why? In chapter 5, we will shift the analytical focus away from regime
strategies, placing more attention on social response and the agency of
civil society actors. We will examine how political liberalization through-
out the 1990s and 2000s led to the proliferation of civil society organiza-
tions and the emergence of grassroots activities that challenged the
regime’s policies. The significant increase in civil society organizations and
advocacy groups, however, did not bring unalloyed success. The regime
continued to restrict social activists and pit different groups against each
other (most notably Islamists and non-Islamists), undermining any com-
mon political agenda. We will investigate the interactions that took place
in the realm of civil society, elucidating how religion has been woven into
Egyptian society (a point considered more fully in the chapter 6), and
probe whose interests civil society organizations represent and what strat-
egies they adopt to serve these interests. Although the regime curtailed
independent popular mobilization during the 1990s and 2000s, there was
some ephemeral and tactical coordination among ideologically different
social groups that helped politicize some issues and put claims on author-
ity in the years leading up to the uprisings of January 2011, thus setting
the stage for our consideration of post-2011 politics in chapter 9.
In chapter 6 we will turn our attention to religion, first by asking what
religion is doing in a book about politics. We will show that Egypt is not
unusual in having religion and politics intertwined but it is unusual in how
they are intertwined. We will show how religion is woven into the fabric of
the state and governance but also how it underlies a considerable portion
of social and economic organization. We additionally explore religious
movements, those that are less directly political and those that are intensely
political. We will show variation over time as well through the rise of reli-
giosity, the rise of religious movements, and the resulting political and social
changes.
Armed with an understanding of how the Egyptian state and society are
organized, and how that organization has evolved over time, we will move
 16
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

in part 3 to integrate the economy into our analysis. Chapter 7 asks why
economic liberalization does not always create a liberal economy, one in
which the state acts to guarantee contracts and property rights and facili-
tate private economic exchanges that take place on the free market.
The Egyptian state’s economic policies changed greatly in ways that dis-
mantled important parts of the socialist experiment and allowed others to
wither. But for all its apparently liberalizing steps, it did not wind up with
a liberal economy. The early infitah (the policy of economic opening) of the
1970s was followed by successive rounds of trade liberalization, private-
sector development, attraction of foreign investment, and privatization of
state-owned enterprises through the 1990s and 2000s. Almost four decades
out from the beginning of the transformation, Egypt no longer had a
state-controlled economy. Even though the state remained a relevant actor
in certain sectors, such as public utilities, infrastructure, and extractive
industries, private-sector enterprises came to control most output, employ-
ment, and investment. Private-sector domination did not necessarily
mean, however, the triumph of the free market. Private property rights
and contract enforcement remained weakly enforced amid rampant cor-
ruption and poorly upheld rule of law. It became difficult to locate Egypt’s
economy in the 1990s and 2000s on the spectrum between state-controlled
and market-based systems.
The underlying argument is that the Egyptian state has ceded its domi-
nance over resource allocation to a large and very diversified private sec-
tor. Just as the social realm saw the state confronting some limits without
building a democratic system, in the economic realm state control con-
fronted problems without giving way to a fully liberal market economy.
The privately controlled economic space expanded greatly but in a manner
that did not lead in the direction the (neo)classical conceptions of a free
market—i.e., an understanding of the economy as a sphere in which anon-
ymous profit maximizers interact at an arm’s length in the presence of state
institutions that serve the task of upholding the market (by enforcing con-
tracts, for instance).
We will show how the nature of change was often missed because the
state’s ability to direct and shape the outcomes of the liberalization process
was often overstated. As authoritarian and unchecked as state power has
been, there were large areas beyond state control, some of them popu-
lated by various private activities that analysts (and rulers) had trouble
 17
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

understanding. Neither scholars nor rulers had a clear understanding of

what an increasingly privately controlled economy looked like. Political
economists simply overlooked private businesses that managed to enter
the market without enjoying strong political connections. Many also
ignored the hundreds of thousands of self-employed individuals, informal
workshops, household businesses, and small firms and microenterprises
that were pulled by, or pushed into, the market with the retreat of the
public sector.
Chapter 8 will turn to the complicated question of the military’s role in
the economy, widely acknowledged to be critical but seemingly impervi-
ous to analysis and even the collection of some basic information.
As the public sector was ceding more space to the private sector, the
Egyptian military built an economic empire of its own. Did this economic
empire enable the military after the 2011 revolution to claim political power,
or restrain it from doing so? And how did the existence of such activities
shape its interests and self-perception as a corporate actor? In answering
these questions, we will place Egypt in comparison with other countries
marked by similar experiences. The Egyptian military expanded its eco-
nomic activities without necessarily impeding private-sector growth. This
has occurred not only in Egypt but also in Turkey, Indonesia, and China.
We will argue that it was not (as might be assumed) simply the push of eco-
nomic interests or ambitions for business that led to the military’s growing
and imposing economic role. More significant was the pull of a civilian
economy that provided resources for the re-politicization of the military.
Thus, the best way to understand Egypt’s military-civilian economy is
through politics rather than economics. We will show that the military
economy has never been dominant in any sector in Egypt. The evidence
thus far does not support the view that the military economy is a revival
of Nasserist state-led development. Moreover, it could have grown—and
it actually did—side by side with a bigger private sector since the 1980s
and 1990s. A military-civilian economy is less a challenge to economic
growth than a hindrance to any political transformation. Access to eco-
nomic resources generated autonomously of any other sector and unac-
countable to any actor within the state or civil society proved essential in
enabling the military to ascend to power after 2011 and to abort any mean-
ingful political transformation. Money is being used for politics rather
than vice versa.
 18
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

Finally, we will conclude the book in chapter 9 with a consideration of

Egyptian politics since 2011. We will use the analysis of the previous chap-
ters to make the fast-paced events, the rapid reversals, and the confusing
tumult of recent years a bit more comprehensible. We will tie the trends we
have identified in previous chapters to the dramatic uprising of 2011, the
complicated aftermath, and the new system that established itself after 2013.
We will examine the period as a whole in order to present a holistic
understanding of events. The authoritarian regime, decayed corporatism,
and partly liberalized economy analyzed in earlier chapters appeared to be
stable in 2010. But in January 2011, an unexpected uprising led many
Egyptians—and many scholars—to conclude not only that a regime had
collapsed but that new forms of politics and economics were emerging. After
2013, however, a new authoritarian order emerged—one that restored some
of what had appeared overthrown while evolving into more than a mere
reconfiguration of past patterns. The regime came to new terms of “politi-
cal settlement” without entertaining the idea of a corporatization of soci-
ety. The regime issued new regulations that ensured depoliticization of the
society and its exclusion from the decision-making process. The regime has
relied heavily on an assemblage of coercive institutions without offering any
policy concessions, developing pork-barreling networks, or revamping the
institutional frameworks that encapsulated diverse elements of the popu-
lar classes under the previous regimes.
How do we understand this puzzling series of events? What explains the
failure of the regime’s containment strategy and the remarkable burst of
societal forces on January 25, 2011 that led to the ousting of Mubarak? How
did emerging opposition groups manage to overcome their historical divide
and coordination dilemma? How did the fleetingly triumphant political and
social forces of opposition fail to lay the groundwork for legitimate demo-
cratic rule? And what is the nature of the regime that has established itself
in the wake of the post-2011 upheaval?
To answer these questions, chapter 9 will examine a series of events that
started with the failure of the regime’s coping strategies amid the remark-
able burst of popular mobilization on and after January 25, 2011. Then it will
investigate how emerging opposition groups, which could adopt unifying
demands to remove the head of the regime, still lacked a common demo-
cratic version to replace the old system. Lastly, it will investigate how state
institutions—initially thrown into disunity and disarray in the national
 19
M U LT I V O C A L Y E T A U T H O R I T A R I A N E G Y P T

uprising—banded together to dislodge Egypt’s first elected president. The

chapter will integrate an understanding of events based on long-term trends
and structures with one that is based on short-term maneuvering and the
actions of specific groups. This integrative approach incorporates historical
and institutional legacies without sidestepping the issue of what causes the
rupture, how historical and institutional legacies condition the transitional
period, and how historical processes shape regime outcomes.
 PART I
The Egyptian State

In this section, we will begin our examination of Egyptian politics by focus-

ing on the Egyptian state and how Egypt has been ruled. Our comparative
focus will also be broad—we will present the emergence of Egypt’s modern
state in terms of global patterns of state formation; we will similarly explore
Egypt’s regimes in terms of global patterns of authoritarianism.
Our inquiry will address two basic questions. First, where do strong
states come from? Second, why are authoritarian regimes built the way
they are?
The first question will draw our attention in chapter 2 to a long histori-
cal sweep (the past two centuries) and to the Egyptian state apparatus as
a whole. The state today has an enormous presence in Egyptian politics,
society, and economy; in order to understand that looming presence, we
will ask where strong states come from. We will answer that question
partly in comparative terms, observing that the two historical models
that scholars often fall back on to explain state formation do not fit the
state-building process in Egypt. The first view is that state building took
place when ambitious rulers worked to amass revenues and build armies
in a harsh and competitive security environment in early modern Europe;
a second, alternative view is that state formation occurred when Europe
molded much of the rest of the world—much of which we now refer to as
“the global South”—in its image through imperialism.
 22
T H E E G Y P T I A N S TAT E

That distinction has some merit but often results in too stark a delinea-
tion between Europe and the rest of the world—as Egypt shows. In the
Egyptian case, which is actually not unusual in the global South, the expan-
sion of the state did, as in the European experience, have a strong domestic
basis in attempts to mobilize Egyptian resources, but it lacked some (though
not all) of the competitive security environment of constant warfare that
took place in Europe. The second process, based on imperialism, also helps
explain patterns in the Egyptian case, as European countries made demands
on, steered, and placed limits on what the Egyptian state could do. How-
ever, imperialism worked through other trends; it did not impose a state
but instead shaped one. Especially after the middle of the twentieth cen-
tury, there was a great expansion in the scope of the state that had its own
domestic logic—though it was also one that may have led to an overreach
and a retraction. We will trace that overreach and retraction in the realm
of the state in part 1, but we come back to society in part 2 and the econ-
omy in part 3.
In chapter 3 we will shorten our historical focus and narrow our ana-
lytical gaze by asking why authoritarian systems are built the way they
are. In other words, we will redirect our attention from the state as a
whole to a narrower group of rulers. We generally use the term “regime”
to refer to the system and set of rules by which a state is run. But the term
is also used a bit loosely for the rulers and the systems they create (so we
speak of “Nasser’s regime”), and when we do so, we thus move among the
state, the system by which the state is run (“regime” in the more specific
sense), and the ruler without always being clear we are doing so. And we
also sometimes edge into treating all aspects of the system as if they are
the creation of a specific ruler—as if Nasser, the regime he led, and the
Egyptian state are difficult to disentangle. And indeed, they sometimes
are, but we will still try. In this chapter we will attempt to explore these
implicit assumptions by focusing on the last half century or so, the period
during which the state reached its most dominant presence, but also the
period when there was some slow and uneven decline in that domination.
We will explore this not only in general terms but also by examining spe-
cific state institutions (the judiciary and the military) that provide critical
vantage points for understanding the evolving relationship among state,
regime, and ruler.
 23
T H E E G Y P T I A N S TAT E

Overall, we will be telling a single story: of the emergence of a strong

state, the emergence of authoritarian regimes that lead that state, and the
slippage that took place in those regimes’ ability to control the state.
We will follow this story historically—that is, we will trace how it oper-
ated over time, encompassing a couple of centuries, but getting into more
detail the closer we get to the present. Egyptians who discuss politics often
do so in historical terms because shared historical memory makes it easier
to express ideas and arguments. So, for instance, Egyptians might refer to
“Nasserism” to recall a period of socialism, authoritarianism, and ambitious
foreign policy that reached its height in the 1960s, and they continue to use
that term as a way of describing controversies today. A critic might say that
the regime has forgotten the Nasserist promises of social welfare. Another
might use the term negatively to charge that the regime has a Nasserist
mindset, meaning it wishes to control everything. But for our book, we work
historically for a different reason: we wish to understand why certain actors
and trends arose. And we seek to do so in a way that is based not on the
particularities of Egypt alone, but in ways that allow us to understand how
processes (like state formation or the decay of authoritarian regimes)
occurred in this particular context.
In parts 2 and 3 we will return to many of these same themes—state con-
trol, partial and uneven retreat of the state—but we do so less from the
vantage point of key institutions within the state and more from the point
of view of the society (part 2) and the economy (part 3).
 Chapter Two

GOVERNING EGYPT
The Construction of the Modern Egyptian State

Where do strong states come from? Do they get built, and if so, by whom?
Or do they emerge from long-term processes that nobody really controls?
In this chapter, we will show long-term forces at work, but we will also show
how rulers and others struggle to react to these forces in order to shape the
development and structure of a strong state.
In Egypt, the existence of a state has not really been at issue. It is its
growth in the modern era—the expansion in spheres of activity that the
state governs, regulates, and controls—that needs to be explained.
We have already observed that Egypt is an old society with a governing
apparatus that goes back quite literally to the dawn of recorded history. In
that sense, the Egyptian state is literally older than the Pyramids. But most
of the modern state apparatus that Egyptians encounter in their lives
today—with its presence in all aspects of social and economic life, its exten-
sive bureaucracy, and its complex structures for educating, preaching to,
housing, and regulating workplace conditions for them; for overseeing their
old media and policing their newer social media; and adjudicating their
disputes—was built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with some
critical structures built on top of older foundations dating back to earlier
centuries.
And that means that Egypt does not quite fit, or might make us rethink,
what we understand about strong states and where they come from.
 26
T H E E G Y P T I A N S TAT E

Scholars have often understood state building as occurring according to

one of two processes, most clearly elaborated by Charles Tilly.1
First, in early modern Europe, states emerged through a competitive pro-
cess in which rulers built bureaucracies, extracted resources, and fought
each other in a manner that was mutually reinforcing for the successful
states. Unsuccessful rulers who could not keep up the pace or lost on the
battlefield often saw their principalities disappear from the political map.
The winners built sovereign states, dominating their societies internally and
fending off (or even swallowing up) external rivals. In the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, those successful states often built stronger administra-
tive and regulatory capabilities; they worked hard to build a sense of
national identity among their citizens through their language policies, edu-
cational systems, and other tools; and they also took on greater social wel-
fare functions, providing more education, pensions, and health care to their
citizens.
But in a second path to state building, those same successful European
states replicated their form throughout the world through colonization and
imperialism (carving up much of the globe), and then by decolonizing,
turning these former colonial territories into independent states. Some
places that were not colonized copied European financial, taxation, and
bureaucratic systems. In short, Europeans built the first modern states on
their home continent and then spread the model elsewhere, either by impo-
sition or by serving as models to emulate. Since the non-European states
often had shallower roots, it is quite common for scholars to assume that
most non-European states tend to be weak, and even that they are Euro-
pean creations.
There are some broad ways in which this helps us understand state for-
mation, but Egypt fits neither situation well—or rather, the process as it has
played out in Egypt partakes of a combination of the two paths. Egypt may
not be all that unusual in this regard.
Egyptian state formation was not simply imposed by Europe. Ambitious
rulers based in Egypt worked on their own to build up a strong state; the
modern Egyptian state, in other words, is not an external imposition. Its
rulers encouraged—and profited from—long-term economic changes, such
as the growth of world trade. But this was not simply an Egyptian process.
European influence was also deeply felt—not so much in creating the
 27
GOVERNING EGYPT

Egyptian state, but in shaping it, limiting it, and also encouraging it to
grow in certain areas.
In short, the idea of two separate paths is too sweeping an explanation
to be profitably applied to the particular case of Egypt. It seems to be based
on a caricature of non-European politics in which local agency is overlooked
and distinctive patterns downplayed.
Those who built the Egyptian state, while they were subject to interna-
tional and economic forces, had choices, even during periods of strong
European control. (Great Britain and France both occupied the country, the
former for decades.) So we need to explore both forces at work in order to
understand why rulers chose some paths and avoided others. When we
explore this question, we can turn to historians for help—those whose writ-
ings on Egypt are often particularistic and detailed rather than sweeping.
When we take a historical view, we will see some global forces at work—
expansion of trade, imperial rivalries, and the like—but we will focus on
the motivations of key actors (especially Egypt’s ruling family and impe-
rial powers until World War I, and then a series of presidents after the
mid-twentieth century).
When we review the modern period, we also see that the Egyptian state
was not born in a single moment or created by a single actor. Instead, it is
a set of effects, many of them unintended, that stem from a collection of
actors reacting to various long-term social and political trends. It was deeply
shaped not simply by long-term forces but also by a series of regime strate-
gies, many of them ad hoc in nature.
We need to delve into the details to find out how these local and global
forces worked. In this way, we will focus in more detail on the very broad
question we posed in the previous chapter: How was the modern Egyptian
state built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?
State building was an outcome of struggles over sovereignty and state
control at the national and international levels; the evolution of major state
structures (the presidency, political parties, the military); and the effects
(often unintended) of various Egyptian rulers and regimes and the sequence
of regime type.
We will proceed by examining the evolution of governance structures,
exploring three periods in modern state formation in Egypt. First, we will
review the experience of state building in the nineteenth and early twentieth
 28
T H E E G Y P T I A N S TAT E

centuries, when many of the basic structures (ministries and other bureau-
cracies, courts of law, and educational structures) were built.
Second, we will turn to the period after World War II. In the 1950s, a
system emerged in which the dominant players were a strong presidency, a
single political party, a rubber-stamp parliament, and a powerful set of
security bodies. A form of “Arab socialism” placed much of the Egyptian
economy under direct state ownership; that which the state did not own, it
regulated quite heavily. In the 1950s and 1960s, it used this strong position
to support a series of welfare commitments to educate, house, employ, and
provide medical care to Egyptians.
Finally, we will see how this system came to face a series of crises by the
late 1960s—military defeat, strong pressure on state finances, economic
problems, and social discontent—leading to a reconfiguration of how state
structures related to each other and their role in society. We will probe the
country’s economic trajectory more fully in part 3.
After tracing the historical evolution of the state, in the following chap-
ter we will focus much more on the regime in the present and see how those
who lead the Egyptian state do so.

STATE BUILDING AND IMPERIALISM

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Almost all of the institutions that govern Egypt today—the ministries, secu-
rity services, educational structures, and so on—trace their origins back to
the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. A few, such as the religious complex
of al-Azhar, the large complex of state-managed religious institutions, have
far deeper roots (though it is worth noting that even al-Azhar was an inde-
pendent institution and was only folded clearly into the state in the mod-
ern period).
To be sure, Egypt has been governed—and taxed, regulated, mobilized,
and policed—for millennia. But if governance has been long-standing in
Egypt, many institutions have not. In the nineteenth century, Egypt’s rulers
adopted a series of measures in order to strengthen their ability to mobilize the
society’s resources, develop the country economically, and make it more
powerful internationally. In so doing, they built the set of structures that gov-
ern the country today. In some cases, they did so on the foundations laid by the
Ottoman Empire, which had governed Egypt since the sixteenth century.
 29
GOVERNING EGYPT

The context in which state building took place in the nineteenth century
was one of enormous economic and political change at the international
level. Economically, rising European hegemony brought with it a great
expansion in international trade. Economic development in Europe and
improvements in transportation led in turn to a great increase in demand
for products (some of which Egypt could produce, like cotton and sugar)
in Europe.
Politically, the growth in power of European states—underwritten by
improvements in military technology, the strengthening of national states
(the “winners,” in Tilly’s analysis), and their increased ability to mobilize
resources through taxation and conscription—allowed them to project their
authority and power outwards. But it also fostered severe rivalries among
the European powers, leading them to check each other’s expansionist
ambitions. The Ottoman Empire—which included Egypt within its
domain up until World War I—exercised only loose influence in the coun-
try. It was both a part of the European state system but also an object of it,
as rival European states sought to exert influence over (and sometimes
took control of) parts of Ottoman territory.
Countries outside of Europe, like Egypt, could take advantage of
increased economic opportunities provided by growing world trade, but in
the new environment they also appeared to Europeans as an economic prize
(access to raw materials or markets) to be won. They could fall under the
sway of one European power or play them off against each other; they could
also emulate some of the techniques of state building pioneered in Europe.
Egyptian state building took place in this context.2 Accounts of modern
Egypt often begin by pointing to key events in this story—the French inva-
sion of 1798, the coming to power of Muhammad Ali in 1805, or the British
occupation of 1882. While these events were important, the process of state
building was a bit more gradual. A ruling dynasty (founded by Muham-
mad Ali) achieved autonomy in, and control of, Egypt. It took the adminis-
trative practices inherited from the era of more direct Ottoman rule and
watched Ottoman and European developments closely. We will refer to this
period as that of the “khedival state” after a new title, “khedive,” that
Muhammad Ali’s successors eventually assumed. The khedival state grew
gradually, encouraging economic development and eventually borrowing
in order to finance its ambitions, but also operating under watchful Euro-
pean eyes. This state gave way to one overseen by the British after 1882, but
 30
T H E E G Y P T I A N S TAT E

the British occupiers steered the state and made major policy decisions—
they did not abolish the governing and administrative structures in the
country; the khedive and the structures that had been built in the nine-
teenth century remained. Thus the story of state building is one of gradual
but still dramatic change. We now turn to this story in a bit more detail.
In the seventeenth century, Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire, but
it was effectively ruled by military strongmen based in Cairo. At the end of
the eighteenth century, the French (under Napoleon) briefly occupied the
country, but popular rebellion and British and Ottoman pressure ultimately
forced the French to withdraw. The Ottomans then sent Albanian troops
to help them restore their rule, and the commander of these troops (Muham-
mad Ali) ultimately managed to establish himself as ruler of the country.
He worked to mobilize Egyptian resources (imposing taxes, constructing
new industries, developing agriculture, and conscripting troops) to build a
strong military force that conquered neighboring areas. While nominally
an Ottoman governor, he threatened the Ottoman Empire with his con-
quests, ultimately leading the European powers to step in and compel him
to abandon territories outside of Egypt in return for recognizing him and
his descendants as autonomous rulers of Egypt. Over much of the next cen-
tury, Egyptian state formation followed something that looked a bit like
the process Tilly described for early modern Europe—though with Egypt
falling somewhere in between the status of winner and loser.
It was a winner because Muhammad Ali’s dynasty operated within the
country without challenge; it was a loser because European powers put
strong limits on Egypt (and one eventually occupied the country). As the
khedival state was built, the European powers required that the Egyptian
military be greatly reduced; they also successfully imposed their under-
standing of “capitulations”—arrangements in which their citizens would
not be subject to Egyptian law but instead the law of their home country.
The effect of this latter step was to complicate Egyptian economic policy:
foreigners resident in the country could not be taxed or have their activi-
ties regulated without the consent of their home governments.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the khedival state began to
take advantage of the expansion in world trade and growing demand for
Egyptian crops (especially cotton to supply new textile industries in Europe)
to develop the country economically. New ports were constructed; railroad
networks built; irrigation canals dredged; and the Suez Canal dug. Some
 31
GOVERNING EGYPT

of these projects were financed by new taxes, but the Egyptian state also
borrowed heavily from Europe to finance the program.
The program was built on, but also further enabled, a stronger state
administrative apparatus. Officials took a more active role in trying to direct
agricultural production; a steady stream of regulations and laws were issued;
and local officials were made more aware of the watchful eye of the central
government in Cairo. The khedival state’s development program placed
great strains on state finances. As we have seen, the taxing of foreigners was
limited by the capitulations. A “Consultative Assembly” of notables—a
revival and expansion of assemblies that had been convened earlier in the
century—was formed partly by election. The body was induced to approve
a law offering future tax forgiveness in return for immediate large payments
to the khedival state. In this respect, it appeared that Egypt was still fol-
lowing a European path, one in which states bargained with their societies
over matters of taxation and revenues (bargaining that often took the form
of rulers negotiating with parliaments).
Finally, overborrowing brought the program into danger: in 1875, Egypt
was forced to declare bankruptcy and accept a measure of European finan-
cial oversight (including the appointment of European officials to the cabi-
net) and an onerous program of debt repayment. This sparked resentment
and political conflict. The program forced austerity on the khedival state.
In the face of this austerity, the assembly of notables attempted to summon
European ministers in order to question them (thus, in European eyes,
attempting to evade bankruptcy arrangements), and army officers publicly
protested after their pay was cut. European powers who suspected that the
ruler, Isma`il (the grandson of Muhammad Ali), was encouraging the unrest
leaned on the Ottoman Empire (still nominally sovereign in Egypt) to
depose him in favor of his son in 1879. But the political crisis continued,
with an Egyptian army colonel, Ahmad `Urabi, emerging at the head of a
movement of notables, senior officials, and army officers pressing back
against European financial oversight and political involvement. In 1882, the
British invaded Egypt to put down the movement; they would go on to
occupy the country for decades.3
The period before the British occupation thus saw significant economic
development within Egypt, much of it oriented around the production and
export of cotton. Accompanying this was a slow expansion of the admin-
istrative capacity of the khedival state. The emergence of new political
 32
T H E E G Y P T I A N S TAT E

actors—large landowners and senior officials gathered in an assembly—and

the army moved Egypt away from narrowly personalistic rule by the descen-
dants of Muhammad Ali, but steps toward a more inclusive parliamentary
system were cut short by the British occupation.
But if British control of Egypt brought fundamental changes at the top,
in many areas of administration, state building continued unabated. A new
court system, designed in the years before the British occupation, was intro-
duced, based on a hierarchical French model with written codes, judges
trained in law schools, courts of appeal, and judicial prosecutors. A nation-
wide system of policing was strengthened. Local officials—provincial gov-
ernors, village mayors, tax collectors—were guided by a stream of central
directives.
In short, the khedival state survived, and even grew in some areas,
though the British imposed cutbacks in other areas. The occupiers also
imposed some new priorities: they continued selling off state and ruling
family lands to repay Egypt’s foreign debts; they resisted Egyptian pres-
sure to increase expenditure on education; they disbanded much of Egypt’s
military; and they focused much public investment in transportation and
irrigation, based on the policy of agricultural development. The British
occupied the country, but their ability to direct and implement policies
and push new laws and regulations was still limited to some extent by the
capitulations, which continued to allow foreigners (and thus many large-
scale commercial and even smaller retail enterprises) exemption from new
Egyptian law and courts. There was even a special court system (the “Mixed
Courts”) to adjudicate any dispute in which a foreigner had an interest
according to a French-inspired law code negotiated between Egypt and
European powers.
Nor did the British occupation bring about a radical formal change in
the way that Egypt was governed. It remained nominally part of the Otto-
man Empire (though as we have seen, the Ottomans had little say in what
happened inside country). Descendants of Muhammad Ali continued to
rule as khedives, supported by Egyptian ministers. But the British insisted
that its consul general (their chief representative in the country) have his
way on all important policy issues, placed British advisers in key minis-
tries to guide their nominal Egyptian superiors, and maintained a small
body of troops within the country. While the occupiers allowed consulta-
tive assemblies to meet, these bodies were merely advisory.
 33
GOVERNING EGYPT

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the British and Ottoman
Empires were formal adversaries, and the British officially pronounced the
link between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire severed. They declared mar-
tial law, effectively suspended the capitulations, and mobilized Egyptian
supplies and the labor force to support their military efforts. During the
war, British officials developed plans to incorporate Egypt more fully into
the British Empire.
But before that could happen, a nationwide rebellion broke out against
the British occupation. In 1919, a group of Egyptian leaders—former offi-
cials and other prominent individuals—mounted a nationwide petition
campaign in support of their claim to represent the country at the postwar
Paris Peace Conference, based on the argument that Egypt had contributed
heavily to the Allied war effort. British authorities arrested the would-be
delegation (which termed itself the Wafd, after the Arabic word for “dele-
gation”), leading to demonstrations in Cairo that spread quickly to other
urban centers and then to the countryside.
While the British were able to put down the uprising, it became clear that
they would have to find an alternative that was less intrusive than bringing
Egypt into their empire. Egyptians refer to the uprising of 1919 as a “revo-
lution” today not only because of the mass mobilization but also to indi-
cate that a demand for independence was asserted—and partially met. The
British sought to negotiate with various Egyptian leaders but found that
some were too weak and others unwilling to make the concessions they
desired. Finally, in 1922, the British simply made a unilateral declaration
that Egypt was independent while claiming that they were still responsible
for some vital matters: defense, British imperial communications (e.g., the
Suez Canal), protecting foreigners and minorities, and Sudan (a region to
the south to which both Britain and Egypt laid claim).

INDEPENDENCE AND STATE BUILDING

The effect of Britain’s unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence was

to give Egypt’s state far more autonomy in matters of internal governance
and policy than it had before. This autonomy (or independence) was not
unlimited: the British government insisted on a say over some critical issues;
and the capitulations and the Mixed Courts continued to limit the reach
of Egyptian law, with especially strong effects on Egyptian finances (taxes
 34
T H E E G Y P T I A N S TAT E

on foreigners—including tariffs to protect Egyptian industries—could only

be levied after torturous international negotiations).
And Egyptian political leaders found independence did not lead easily
to an ability to act coherently. The descendant of Muhammad Ali, now
styling himself “King” of Egypt, appointed a group of leaders to draft a
constitution. The Wafd—converting itself into a political party—insisted
that only elected representatives could write such a thing, and therefore
boycotted the process. The resulting document, issued in 1923, governed
Egypt (with two interruptions) until 1952, but it left critical ambiguities. It
allowed for a strong monarchy but also an elected parliament. The Wafd,
while it criticized the Constitution, did enter parliamentary elections
and easily won them. The strong rivalry between the Wafd and the throne
continued over three decades, diminishing gradually over time, but still
leading the king at various times to rig elections against the Wafd or sus-
pend the Constitution.
As time wore on, the Wafd found that it did not have a monopoly on
organizing Egyptian society. Other political parties arose (some of them
splitting off from the Wafd) that gradually eroded the Wafd’s strength. But
more significantly, perhaps, new social movements formed that focused less
on parliamentary elections and more on organizing new generations of
Egyptians, particularly in urban areas. The Muslim Brotherhood was per-
haps the most successful of these movements; founded in the late 1920s, it
became a major presence in Egyptian social life over the next two decades.
Other movements of various ideological stripes (religious, nationalist, and
leftist) arose, some of them taking positions on political issues or pressur-
ing political leaders on public policy.
The Egyptian state was operating not only in a more contentious and
complicated domestic context but also one that was still circumscribed
internationally through the continuation of certain aspects of British
occupation, the presence of British personnel in key positions in the state
apparatus, the capitulations, and the Mixed Courts (which, as described
previously, protected the special status of foreigners).4 In the quarter cen-
tury after Britain’s unilateral declaration of independence, however, these
gradually lessened. An Egyptian government headed by the Wafd finally
negotiated a treaty with Great Britain in 1936 that recognized full Egyp-
tian independence. While the treaty, ostensibly between two sovereign
states, preserved a strong role for Britain in Egypt’s security affairs and
 35
GOVERNING EGYPT

foreign policy, the close involvement of British officials in other areas

gradually declined.
The conclusion of the treaty allowed the Egyptian government to ask for
an international conference to end the capitulations and the Mixed Courts.
With strong British support, the conference was held in 1937 and saw the
negotiation of a twelve-year abolition process. This allowed the Egyptian
state to exercise fiscal autonomy for the first time. It could now levy taxes,
protect its own industries, and police foreigners.
The shift was real but not total. Over the short term, the limitations in
the defense realm were quickly felt when Britain entered World War II and
asked for Egyptian support under the recently negotiated treaty. Egypt did
not formally enter the war, but it did declare martial law to allow it to take
measures in support of the British war effort—a state of emergency that has
remained in effect (with some short interruptions) up to the present. In 1942,
when the British feared that an Egyptian government might use the con-
flict in North Africa—German troops were then advancing on Egypt—to
oust the British, they surrounded the palace and forced the king to appoint
the Wafd to head the cabinet. And British troops remained at the Suez
Canal. In 1954, the Egyptians and British negotiated a British withdrawal,
and just as that was completed, the Egyptian government nationalized the
Suez Canal, which had been owned by a British-French company. The Brit-
ish and French invaded and occupied the Canal Zone but were forced to
withdraw due to intense international pressure.
In all these ways, Egyptian independence, declared in 1922, took over
three decades to be fully realized. But as this independence gradually
expanded, it made state building efforts possible in several realms. The
educational apparatus was greatly expanded, with schools built first in
major cities and then in towns and villages. The legal system was unified,
with an end to the Mixed Courts in 1949 and separate courts for “per-
sonal status” in 1955. Policing was removed from the restrictions imposed
by the capitulations. The 1936 treaty did not merely allow Egypt to assume
responsibility for its own defense—it required it to do so; the Egyptian
military, which had been kept tiny under the British occupation, began
to build a larger force, and it opened an academy to train officers.
But it was not merely institutions that could now be built. Fiscal auton-
omy made it possible to adopt new economic policies that favored Egyp-
tian development. Egyptian leaders were no longer restricted by foreign
 36
T H E E G Y P T I A N S TAT E

powers who saw the country as a producer of cotton and agricultural prod-
ucts, and they could invest in new infrastructure projects, such as electri-
fication. Reform-minded leaders argued successfully to use state revenues
to build universities and to abolish tuition.
And wartime measures led to price controls on some basic commodi-
ties (authorities wanted no food riots or disturbances to public order, as had
happened in previous years, when World War I caused domestic inflation
and dislocations that helped fuel the uprising of 1919). When the war ended
in 1945, the mechanisms were in place for heavier state regulation of prices
and markets.
In 1952, regime change led to an intensification of this state building.
Indeed, for this reason, the events of 1952 are often referred to by Egyptians
as a “revolution.” The regime change itself—consisting of a seizure of power
by a group of military officers—was nonviolent and the political restruc-
turing at the top was gradual (the officers first deposed the king, then abol-
ished the monarchy altogether a year later; they then built a new political
system in the mid-1950s). And the years after 1952 did indeed see dramatic
political change. But once again, there was strong continuity as well, as the
new regime built on trends and used tools that were already in place.
The generation of military officers brought into the military academy in
the late 1930s had been imbued with a strong nationalist mission; in 1948,
when they were sent to fight a war over the creation of the State of Israel,
they were defeated in a manner that led many to blame the country’s top
political leadership. Many of these officers had been politically active in the
1930s (joining movements like the Muslim Brotherhood), and some retained
links to leftist, nationalist, or Islamist movements. A secret group was
formed within the military, calling itself the “Free Officers,” and it was they
who moved to take power in July 1952. After some internal power struggles,
one of their members, Gamal `Abd al-Nasser, emerged as president, a posi-
tion he held until his death in 1970.5
The Free Officers’ regime ushered itself in with a pledge to reform the
system, but increasingly the new rulers decided—especially after the offi-
cers led by Nasser, who favored continued rule, defeated those who wished
an earlier return to civilian life—to restructure the political system in some
fundamental ways. The new regime abolished all political parties and
formed a series of organizations, the most ambitious of which, the Arab
Socialist Union, folded into itself many of the existing institutions in the
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Analysis of
Beauty
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
using this eBook.

Title: The Analysis of Beauty

Author: William Hogarth

Release date: March 15, 2016 [eBook #51459]

Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Clare Graham and Marc D'Hooghe (Images

generously made available by the Hathi Trust)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANALYSIS OF

BEAUTY ***
 THE

ANALYSIS
 OF

BEAUTY.
Written with a view of fixing the fluctuating Ideas of

TASTE.

BY WILLIAM HOGARTH.
So vary'd he, and of his tortuous train
Curl'd many a wanton wreath, in sight of Eve
To lure her eye.—— Milton.

LONDON:

Printed by J. REEVES for the AUTHOR,

And Sold by him at his House in Leicester-fields.

MDCCLIII.
 PREFACE.

If a preface was ever necessary, it may very likely be thought so to the

following work; the title of which (in the proposals publish'd some time
since) hath much amused, and raised the expectation of the curious,
though not without a mixture of doubt, that its purport could ever be
satisfactorily answered. For though beauty is seen and confessed by
all, yet, from the many fruitless attempts to account for the cause of its
being so, enquiries on this head have almost been given up; and the
subject generally thought to be a matter of too high and too delicate a
nature to admit of any true or intelligible discussion. Something
therefore introductory ought to be said at the presenting a work with a
face so entirely new; especially as it will naturally encounter with, and
perhaps may overthrow, several long received and thorough establish'd
opinions: and since controversies may arise how far, and after what
manner this subject hath hitherto been consider'd and treated, it will
also be proper to lay before the reader, what may be gathered
concerning it, from the works of the ancient and modern writers and
painters.
It is no wonder this subject should have so long been thought
inexplicable, since the nature of many parts of it cannot possibly come
within the reach of mere men of letters; otherwise those ingenious
gentlemen who have lately published treatises upon it (and who have
written much more learnedly than can be expected from one who
never took up the pen before) would not so soon have been bewilder'd
in their accounts of it, and obliged so suddenly to turn into the broad,
and more beaten path of moral beauty; in order to extricate
themselves out of the difficulties they seem to have met with in this:
and withal forced for the same reasons to amuse their readers with
amazing (but often misapplied) encomiums on deceased painters and
their performances; wherein they are continually discoursing of effects
instead of developing causes; and after many prettinesses, in very
pleasing language, do fairly set you down just where they first took you
up; honestly confessing that as to grace, the main point in question,
they do not even pretend to know any thing of the matter. And indeed
how should they? when it actually requires a practical knowledge of the
whole art of painting (sculpture alone not being sufficient) and that too
to some degree of eminence, in order to enable any one to pursue the
chain of this enquiry through all its parts: which I hope will be made to
appear in the following work.
It will then naturally be asked, why the best painters within these two
centuries, who by their works appear to have excelled in grace and
beauty, should have been so silent in an affair of such seeming
importance to the imitative arts and their own honour? to which I
answer, that it is probable, they arrived at that excellence in their
works, by the mere dint of imitating with great exactness the beauties
of nature, and by often copying and retaining strong ideas of graceful
antique statues; which might sufficiently serve their purposes as
painters, without their troubling themselves with a farther enquiry into
the particular causes of the effects before them. It is not indeed a little
strange, that the great Leonardo da Vinci (amongst the many
philosophical precepts which he hath at random laid down in his
treatise on painting) should not have given the least hint of any thing
tending to a system of this kind; especially, as he was cotemporary
with Michael Angelo, who is said to have discover'd a certain principle
in the trunk only of an antique statue, (well known from this
circumstance by the name of Michael Angelo's Torso, or Back, fig. 54 p.
I) which principle gave his works a grandeur of gusto equal to the best
antiques. Relative to which tradition, Lomazzo who wrote about
painting at the same time, hath this remarkable passage, vol. I. book I.
"And because in this place there falleth out a certaine precept of
Michael Angelo much for our purpose, I wil not conceale it, leaving the
farther interpretation and vnderstanding thereof to the iudicious reader.
It is reported then that Michael Angelo vpon a time gaue this
observation to the Painter Marcus de Sciena his scholler; that he should
alwaies make a figure Pyramidall, Serpentlike, and multiplied by one
two and three. In which precept (in mine opinion) the whole mysterie
of the arte consisteth. For the greatest grace and life that a picture can
haue, is, that it expresse Motion: which the Painters call the spirite of a
picture: Nowe there is no forme so fitte to expresse this motion, as that
of the flame of fire, which according to Aristotle and the other
Philosophers, is an elemente most actiue of all others: because the
forme of the flame thereof is most apt for motion: for it hath a Conus
or sharpe pointe wherewith it seemeth to divide the aire, that so it may
ascende to his proper sphere. So that a picture having this forme will
bee most beautifull."[1]
[1] See Haydock's translation printed at Oxford, 1598.
Many writers since Lomazzo have in the same words recommended the
observing this rule also; without comprehending the meaning of it: for
unless it were known systematically, the whole business of grace could
not be understood.
Du Fresnoy, in his art of painting, says "large flowing, gliding outlines
which are in waves, give not only a grace to the part, but to the whole
body; as we see in the Antinous, and in many other of the antique
figures: a fine figure and its parts ought always to have a serpent-like
and flaming form: naturally those sort of lines have I know not what of
life and seeming motion in them, which very much resembles the
activity of the flame and of the serpent." Now if he had understood
what he had said, he could not, speaking of grace, have expressed
himself in the following contradictory manner.—"But to say the truth,
this is a difficult undertaking, and a rare present, which the artist rather
receives from the hand of heaven than from his own industry and
studies[2]." But De Piles, in his lives of the painters, is still more
contradictory, where he says, "that a painter can only have it (meaning
grace) from nature, and doth not know that he hath it, nor in what
degree, nor how he communicates it to his works: and that grace and
beauty are two different things; beauty pleases by the rules, and grace
without them."
[2] See Dryden's translation of his latin poem on Painting, verse 28, and the remarks
on these very lines, page 155, which run thus, "It is difficult to say what this grace of
painting is, it is to be conceiv'd, and understood much more easy than to be
expressed by words; it proceeds from the illuminations of an excellent mind, (but not
to be acquired) by which we give a certain turn to things, which makes them
pleasing."

All the English writers on this subject have echo'd these passages;
hence Je ne sçai quoi, is become a fashionable phrase for grace.
By this it is plain, that this precept which Michael Angelo deliver'd so
long ago in an oracle-like manner, hath remain'd mysterious down to
this time, for ought that has appear'd to the contrary. The wonder that
it should do so will in some measure lessen when we come to consider
that it must all along have appeared as full of contradiction as the most
obscure quibble ever deliver'd at Delphos, because, winding lines are
as often the cause of deformity as of grace, the solution of which, in
this place, would be an anticipation of what the reader will find at large
in the body of the work.
There are also strong prejudices in favour of straight lines, as
constituting true beauty in the human form, where they never should
appear. A middling connoisseur thinks no profile has beauty without a
very straight nose, and if the forehead be continued straight with it, he
thinks it is still more sublime. I have seen miserable scratches with the
pen, sell at a considerable rate for only having in them a side face or
two, like that between fig. 22, and fig. 105, plate I, which was made,
and any one might do the same, with the eyes shut. The common
notion that a person should be straight as an arrow, and perfectly erect
is of this kind. If a dancing-master were to see his scholar in the easy
and gracefully-turned attitude of the Antinous (fig. 6, plate I,) he would
cry shame on him, and tell him he looked as crooked as a ram's horn,
and bid him hold up his head as he himself did. See fig. 7, plate I.
The painters, in like manner, by their works, seem to be no less divided
upon the subject than the authors. The French, except such as have
imitated the antique, or the Italian school, seem to have studiously
avoided the serpentine line in all their pictures, especially Anthony
Coypel, history painter, and Rigaud, principal portrait painter to Lewis
the 14th.
Rubens, whose manner of designing was quite original, made use of a
large flowing line as a principle, which runs through all his works, and
gives a noble spirit to them; but he did not seem to be acquainted with
what we call the precise line; which hereafter we shall be very
particular upon, and which gives the delicacy we see in the best Italian
masters; but he rather charged his contours in general with too bold
and S-like swellings.
Raphael, from a straight and stiff manner, on a sudden changed his
taste of lines at sight of Michael Angelo's works, and the antique
statues; and so fond was he of the serpentine line, that he carried it
into a ridiculous excess, particularly in his draperies: though his great
observance of nature suffer'd him not long to continue in this mistake.
Peter de Cortone form'd a fine manner in his draperies of this line.
We see this principle no where better understood than in some pictures
of Corregio, particularly his Juno and Ixion: yet the proportions of his
figures are sometimes such as might be corrected by a common sign
painter.
Whilst Albert Durer, who drew mathematically, never so much as
deviated into grace, which he must sometimes have done in copying
the life, if he had not been fetter'd with his own impracticable rules of
proportion.
But that which may have puzzled this matter most, may be, that
Vandyke, one of the best portrait painters in most respects ever known,
plainly appears not to have had a thought of this kind. For there seems
not to be the least grace in his pictures more than what the life
chanced to bring before him. There is a print of the Dutchess of
Wharton (fig. 52, plate II,) engraved by Van Gunst, from a true picture
by him, which is thoroughly divested of every elegance. Now, had he
known this line as a principle, he could no more have drawn all the
parts of this picture so contrary to it, than Mr. Addison could have
wrote a whole spectator in false grammar; unless it were done on
purpose. However, on account of his other great excellencies, painters
chuse to stile this want of grace in his attitudes, &c. simplicity, and
indeed they do often very justly merit that epithet.

Nor have the painters of the present times been less uncertain and
contradictory to each other, than the masters already mentioned,
whatever they may pretend to the contrary: of this I had a mind to be
certain, and therefore, in the year 1745, published a frontispiece to my
engraved works, in which I drew a serpentine line lying on a painter's
pallet, with these words under it, the line of beauty. The bait soon took;
and no Egyptian hierogliphic ever amused more than it did for a time,
painters and sculptors came to me to know the meaning of it, being as
much puzzled with it as other people, till it came to have some
explanation; then indeed, but not till then, some found it out to be an
old acquaintance of theirs, tho' the account they could give of its
properties was very near as satisfactory as that which a day-labourer
who constantly uses the leaver, could give of that machine as a
mechanical power.
Others, as common face painters and copiers of pictures, denied that
there could be such a rule either in art or nature, and asserted it was
all stuff and madness; but no wonder that these gentlemen should not
be ready in comprehending a thing they have little or no business with.
For though the picture copier may sometimes to a common eye seem
to vye with the original he copies, the artist himself requires no more
ability, genius, or knowledge of nature, than a journeyman-weaver at
the goblins, who in working after a piece of painting, bit by bit, scarcely
knows what he is about, whether he is weaving a man or a horse, yet
at last almost insensibly turns out of his loom a fine piece of tapestry,
representing, it may be, one of Alexander's battles painted by Le Brun.
As the above-mention'd print thus involved me in frequent disputes by
explaining the qualities of the line, I was extremely glad to find it
(which I had conceiv'd as only part of a system in my mind) so well
supported by the above precept of Michael Angelo: which was first
pointed out to me by Dr. Kennedy, a learned antiquarian and
connoisseur, of whom I afterwards purchased the translation, from
which I have taken several passages to my purpose.
Let us now endeavour to discover what light antiquity throws upon the
subject in question.
Egypt first, and afterward Greece, have manifested by their works their
great skill in arts and sciences, and among the rest painting, and
sculpture, all which are thought to have issued from their great schools
of philosophy. Pythagoras, Socrates, and Aristotle, seem to have
pointed out the right road in nature for the study of the painters and
sculptors of those times (which they in all probability afterwards
followed through those nicer paths that their particular professions
required them to pursue) as may be reasonably collected from the
answers given by Socrates to Aristippus his disciple, and Parrhasius the
painter, concerning fitness, the first fundamental law in nature with
regard to beauty.
I am in some measure saved the trouble of collecting an historical
account of these arts among the ancients, by accidentally meeting with
a preface to a tract, call'd the Beau Ideal: this treatise[3] was written
by Lambert Hermanson Ten Kate, in French, and translated into English
by James Christopher le Blon; who in that preface says, speaking of the
Author, "His superior knowledge that I am now publishing, is the
product of the Analogy of the ancient Greeks; or the true key for
finding all harmonious proportions in painting, sculpture, architecture,
musick, &c. brought home to Greece by Pythagoras. For after this great
philosopher had travell'd into Phoenicia, Egypt and Chaldea, where he
convers'd with the learned; he return'd into Greece about Anno Mundi
3484. Before the christian æra 520, and brought with him many
excellent discoveries and improvements for the good of his
countrymen, among which the Analogy was one of the most
considerable and useful.
[3] Publish'd in 1732, and sold by A. Millar.
"After him the Grecians, by the help of this Analogy, began (and not
before) to excel other nations in sciences and arts; for whereas before
this time they represented their Divinities in plain human figures, the
Grecians now began to enter into the Beau Ideal; and Pamphilus, (who
flourish'd A. M. 3641, before the christian æra 363, who taught, that
no man could excel in painting without mathematicks) the scholar of
Pausias and master of Apelles, was the first who artfully apply'd the
said Analogy to the art of painting; as much about the same time the
sculpturers, the architects, &c. began to apply it to their several arts,
without which science, the Grecians had remain'd as ignorant as their
forefathers.
"They carried on their improvements in drawing, painting, architecture,
sculpture, &c. till they became the wonders of the world; especially
after the Asiaticks and Egyptians (who had formerly been the teachers
of the Grecians) had, in process of time and by the havock of war, lost
all the excellency in sciences and arts; for which all other nations were
afterwards obliged to the Grecians, without being able so much as to
imitate them.
"For when the Romans had conquered Greece and Asia, and had
brought to Rome the best paintings and the finest artists, we don't find
they discovered the great key of knowledge, the Analogy I am now
speaking of, but their best performances were conducted by Grecian
artists, who it seems cared not to communicate their secret of the
Analogy; because either they intended to be necessary at Rome, by
keeping the secret among themselves, or else the Romans, who
principally affected universal dominion, were not curious enough to
search after the secret, not knowing the importance of it, nor
understanding that, without it, they could never attain to the excellency
of the Grecians: though nevertheless it must be owned that the
Romans used well the proportions, which the Grecians long before had
reduced to certain fixed rules according to their ancient Analogy; and
the Romans could arrive at the happy use of the proportions, without
comprehending the Analogy itself."
This account agrees with what is constantly observed in Italy, where
the Greek, and Roman work, both in medals and statues, are as
distinguishable as the characters of the two languages.
As the preface had thus been of service to me, I was in hopes from the
title of the book (and the assurance of the translator, that the author
had by his great learning discovered the secret of the ancients) to have
met with something there that might have assisted, or confirmed the
scheme I had in hand; but was much disappointed in finding nothing of
that sort, and no explanation, or even after-mention of what at first
agreeably alarmed me, the word Analogy. I have given the reader a
specimen, in his own words, how far the author has discovered this
grand secret of the ancients, or great key of knowledge, as the
translator calls it.
"The sublime part that I so much esteem, and of which I have begun
to speak, is a real Je ne sçai quoi, or an unaccountable something to
most people, and it is the most important part to all the connoisseurs, I
shall call it an harmonious propriety, which is a touching or moving
unity, or a pathetick agreement or concord, not only of each member
to its body, but also of each part to the member of which it is a part: It
is also an infinite variety of parts, however conformable, with respect to
each different subject, so that all the attitude, and all the adjustment of
the draperies of each figure ought to answer or correspond to the
subject chosen. Briefly, it is a true decorum, a bienseance or a
congruent disposition of ideas, as well for the face and stature, as for
the attitudes. A bright genius, in my opinion, who aspires to excel in
the ideal, should propose this to himself, as what has been the
principal study of the most famous artists. 'Tis in this part that the
great masters cannot be imitated or copied but by themselves, or by
those that are advanced in the knowledge of the ideal, and who are as
knowing as those masters in the rules or laws of the pittoresque and
poetical nature, altho' inferior to the masters in the high spirit of
invention."
The words in this quotation "It is also an infinite variety of parts," seem
at first to have some meaning in them, but it is entirely destroy'd by
the rest of the paragraph, and all the other pages are filled, according
to custom, with descriptions of pictures.
Now, as every one has a right to conjecture what this discovery of the
ancients might be, it shall be my business to shew it was a key to the
thorough knowledge of variety both in form, and movement.
Shakespear, who had the deepest penetration into nature, has sum'd
up all the charms of beauty in two words, infinite variety; where,
speaking of Cleopatra's power over Anthony, he says,
——Nor custom stale
Her infinite variety:—— Act 2. Scene 3.
It has been ever observed, that the ancients made their doctrines
mysterious to the vulgar, and kept them secret from those who were
not of their particular sects, and societies, by means of symbols, and
hieroglyphics. Lomazzo says, chap. 29, book 1. "The Grecians in
imitation of antiquity searched out the truly renowned proportion,
wherein the exact perfection of most exquisite beauty and sweetness
appeareth; dedicating the same in a triangular glass unto Venus the
goddess of divine beauty, from whence all the beauty of inferior things
is derived."
If we suppose this passage to be authentic, may we not also imagine it
probable, that the symbol in the triangular glass, might be similar to
the line Michael Angelo recommended; especially, if it can be proved,
that the triangular form of the glass, and the serpentine line itself, are
the two most expressive figures that can be thought of to signify not
only beauty and grace, but the whole order of form.
There is a circumstance in the account Pliny gives of Apelles's visit to
Protogenes, which strengthens this supposition. I hope I may have
leave to repeat the story. Apelles having heard of the fame of
Protogenes, went to Rhodes to pay him a visit, but not finding him at
home asked for a board, on which he drew a line, telling the servant
maid, that line would signify to her master who had been to see him;
we are not clearly told what sort of a line it was that could so
particularly signify one of the first of his profession: if it was only a
stroke (tho' as fine as a hair as Pliny seems to think) it could not
possibly, by any means, denote the abilities of a great painter. But if we
suppose it to be a line of some extraordinary quality, such as the
serpentine line will appear to be, Apelles could not have left a more
satisfactory signature of the complement he had paid him. Protogenes
when he came home took the hint, and drew a finer or rather more
expressive line within it, to shew Apelles if he came again, that he
understood his meaning. He, soon returning, was well-pleased with the
answer Protogenes had left for him, by which he was convinced that
fame had done him justice, and so correcting the line again, perhaps
by making it more precisely elegant, he took his leave. The story thus
may be reconcil'd to common sense, which, as it has been generally
receiv'd, could never be understood but as a ridiculous tale.
Let us add to this, that there is scarce an Egyptian, Greek, or Roman
deity, but hath a twisted serpent, twisted cornucopia, or some symbol
winding in this manner to accompany it. The two small heads (over the
busto of the Hercules, fig. 4, in plate I) of the goddess Isis, one
crowned with a globe between two horns, the other with a lily[4], are
of this kind. Harpocrates, the god of silence, is still more remarkably
so, having a large twisted horn growing out of the side of his head, one
cornucopia in his hand, and another at his feet, with his finger placed
on his lips, indicating secrecy: (see Montfaucon's antiquities) and it is
as remarkable, that the deities of barbarous and gothic nations never
had, nor have to this day, any of these elegant forms belonging to
them. How absolutely void of these turns are the pagods of China, and
what a mean taste runs through most of their attempts in painting and
sculpture, notwithstanding they finish with such excessive neatness;
the whole nation in these matters seem to have but one eye: this
mischief naturally follows from the prejudices they imbibe by copying
one anothers works, which the ancients seem seldom to have done.
[4] The leaves of this flower as they grow, twist themselves various ways in a
pleasing manner, as may be better seen by figure 43, in plate I, but there is a curious
little flower called the Autumn Syclamen, fig. 47, the leaves of which elegantly twist
one way only.
Upon the whole, it is evident, that the ancients studied these arts very
differently from the moderns: Lomazzo seems to be partly aware of
this, by what he says in the division of his work, page 9, "There is a
two-folde proceeding in all artes and sciences: the one is called the
order of nature, and the other of teaching. Nature proceedeth
ordinarily, beginning with the unperfect, as the particulars, and ending
with the perfect, as the universals. Now if in searching out the nature
of things, our understanding shall proceede after that order, by which
they are brought forth by nature, doubtlesse it will be the most
absolute and ready method that can bee imagined. For we beginne to
know things by their first and immediate principles, &c. and this is not
only mine opinion but Aristotles also," yet, mistaking Aristotle's
meaning, and absolutely deviating from his advice, he afterwards says,
"all which if we could comprehend within our understanding, we should
be most wise; but it is impossible," and after having given some dark
reasons why he thinks so, he tells you "he resolves to follow the order
of teaching," which all the writers on painting have in like manner since
done.
Had I observed the foregoing passage, before I undertook this essay, it
probably would have put me to a stand, and deterred me from
venturing upon what Lomazzo calls an impossible task: but observing
in the foremention'd controversies that the torrent generally ran against
me; and that several of my opponents had turn'd my arguments into
ridicule, yet were daily availing themselves of their use, and venting
them even to my face as their own; I began to wish the publication of
something on this subject; and accordingly applied myself to several of
my friends, whom I thought capable of taking up the pen for me,
offering to furnish them with materials by word of mouth: but finding
this method not practicable, from the difficulty of one man's expressing
the ideas of another, especially on a subject which he was either
unacquainted with, or was new in its kind, I was therefore reduced to
an attempt of finding such words as would best answer my own ideas,
being now too far engaged to drop the design. Hereupon, having
digested the matter as well as I could, and thrown it into the form of a
book, I submitted it to the judgment of such friends whose sincerity
and abilities I could best rely on, determining on their approbation or
dislike to publish or destroy it: but their favourable opinion of the
manuscript being publicly known, it gave such a credit to the
undertaking, as soon changed the countenances of those, who had a
better opinion of my pencil, than my pen, and turn'd their sneers into
expectation: especially when the same friends had kindly made me an
offer of conducting the work through the press. And here I must
acknowledge myself particularly indebted to one gentleman for his
corrections and amendment of at least a third part of the wording.
Through his absence and avocations, several sheets went to the press
without any assistance, and the rest had the occasional inspection of
one or two other friends. If any inaccuracies shall be found in the
writing, I shall readily acknowledge them all my own, and am, I
confess, under no great concern about them, provided the matter in
general may be found useful and answerable in the application of it to
truth and nature; in which material points, if the reader shall think fit to
rectify any mistakes, it will give me a sensible pleasure, and be doing
great honour to the work.

ADVERTISEMENT.

For the more easy finding the figures referred to in the two prints
belonging to this work, the references are for the most part placed in
the margin. Fig. T p. I signifies the top of plate I. L p. I the left side. R
p. I the right side. B. p. I. the bottom. And where a figure is referred to
in the middle of either print, it is only mark'd thus, fig. p. I or fig. p. II.
[Transcriber's note: In this digital edition, these marginal references have been incorporated
into the text within square brackets, e.g. [fig. 1 T p. I]. The two prints were not originally
bound into the book; they are reproduced in their entirety below. Reproductions of the
individual figures have also been incorporated into the text at the appropriate points.]

PLATE I
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com