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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2008

Old regime and modernity in Egypt: Al-Jabarti and the ambiguous heritage of the French Revolution

Nora Lafi
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Résumé

Al-Jabarti and his view on the French occupation of Egypt have often been at the centre of debates on orientalism in Middle-Eastern studies. Edward Said himself used this episode as a key feature in his interpretation of the roots of the asymmetric and perverse relationship between Europe and the Middle-East. As it pertains to a funding and crucial moment, and as it involves value judgments on the relationship between two civilisation spheres caught in a process of redefinition, it is fully logical that this specific moment be the object of fierce interpretations. And as al-Jabarti's writing is a unique source in allowing to having a view on how a local notable interpreted the European invasion, his chronicle is also at the centre of many debates. The field I am going to confront with in this paper is in no way neutral in Middle-Eastern studies. Many debates already occurred since the 70's and each new contribution participates in bringing further interpretations on the impact of Europe with the Middle-East. But our aim here is to reflect on global history. And the perspective I would like to illustrate consists in using a moment of confrontation and interaction between two systems in order not only to catch the specifics dynamics of interaction, but also to take profit of the interaction to make each system more explicit. I conceive here global history as a method, and in no way as an enveloping process in which greater truth would come out of unusual comparisons. What I am interested in is to understand better the old regime ottoman society in Egypt at the moment of its confrontation to an external aggression.

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halshs-00337970 , version 1 (10-11-2010)

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Nora Lafi. Old regime and modernity in Egypt: Al-Jabarti and the ambiguous heritage of the French Revolution. Internation Conference on Global History, 2008, Dresde, Germany. ⟨halshs-00337970⟩
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