Vernon Egger. A Fabian in Egypt: Salamah Musa and the Rise of the Professional Classes in Egypt, 1909-1939. (University Press of America, 1986)
Vernon Egger's A Fabian in Egypt (1986) is remarkable. Strongly written, theoretically sound, well-sourced, and showing an excellent understanding of the surrounding issues - Egger is able, for example, to speak authoritatively about the social positioning of the Egyptian Coptic community during the early years of the twentieth century. It is unfortunate, given the quality of the study, that it has not been reissued or updated; the copy I have appears to be a bound reprint of Egger's dissertation, typed in a quite difficult to read Courier font. A second edition would be most welcome.
Egger's central thesis, that prolific journalist, social commentator, and iconoclast Salamah Musa (1887-1958), whose substantial oeuvre is analyzed in depth throughout the study, was representative of an emerging educated class of Egyptian intelligentsia, is provocative. When examined side by side with Gershoni and Jankowski's Redefining the Egyptian Nation, 1930-1945 (1995), it seems that Eggers may have been onto something.
Egger contends that Musa was more persuaded by Fabian society socialism with its gradualist aims and elite pedigree, than by Marxism with its bottom-up, (uneducated) worker-driven revolutionary focus. Egger notes, for example, that Musa wrote that Ahmed Urabi's movement (1879-1882) failed because he was from a low social class (95).
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