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Charles D. Smith's review essay on our book Redefining the Egyptian Nation in the October 1997 issue of IJMES undertakes a critical analysis of the work. Simultaneously, it raises broader questions about the relevance of some of the insights of theoreticians of nationalism, particularly Benedict Anderson, to the case of Egyptian nationalism. The essay's attempt to evaluate the utility of recent theoretical writing on nationalism for the study of the Middle East is a worthwhile endeavor. However, we believe that the essay's analysis of the book itself is based on a familiarity with only a small selection of the sources relevant to understanding Egyptian nationalism, and that it provides a misleading interpretation of the contents of the work. We also feel that its observations about nationalist theory sometimes misconstrue our use of the same, and in general underestimate the importance of recent theoretical work on nationalism for the study of Egypt and the Middle East.

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction, by Israel Gershoni and James JankowskiPart I. Narrativity I: Mechanics of Historiography: How Academics Construct Nationalist History1. Rethinking the Formation of Arab Nationalism in the Middle East, 1920-1945: Old and New Narratives, by Israel Gershoni2. The Formation of Yemeni Nationalism: Initial Reflections, by Fred Halliday3. The Tropes of Stagnation and Awakening in Nationalist Historical Consciousness: The Egyptian Case, by Gabriel PiterbergPart II. Narrativity II: Mechanics of Ideology: How Nationalists Construct Nationalist History4. The Arab Nationalism of George Antonius Reconsidered, by William L. Cleveland5. The Imposition of Nationalism on a Non-Nation State: The Case of Iraq During the Interwar Period, 1921-1941, by Reeva S. Simon6. Nationalist Iconography: Egypt as a Woman, by Beth BaronPart III. Discursive Competitions: The Interplay of Rival Nationalist Visions7. Nationalizing the Pharaonic Past: Egyptology, Imperialism, and Egyptian Nationalism, 1922-1952, by Donald M. Reid8. Arab Nationalism in "Nasserism" and Egyptian State Policy, 1952-1958, by James JankowskiPart IV. Polycentrism9. The Formation of Palestinian Identity: The Critical Years, 1917-1923, by Rashid Khalidi10. The Palestinians: Tensions Between Nationalist and Religious Identities, by Musa Budeiri11. Arab Nationalism in the Age of the Islamic Resurgence, by Emmanuel SivanPart V. Nationalist Diffusion from the Bottom Up: Other Voices12. The Other Arab Nationalism: Syrian/Arab Populism in Its Historical and International Contexts, by James L. Gelvin13. Arab Workers and Arab Nationalism in Palestine: A View from Below, by Zachary Lockman14. The Paradoxical in Arab Nationalism: Interwar Syria Revisited, by Philip S. KhouryNotesGlossary of Arabic TermsWorks Cited in the TextContributorsIndex

From its attaining of formal independence in 1922 until 1936, the government of Egypt did not involve itself in the controversy developing in neighboring Palestine. During the Palestinian Arab revolt from 1936 to 1939, however, this stance of non-involvement came to an end. In the later years of the 1930s, successive Egyptian governments became deeply involved in the Palestine issue, until by 1939 the Egyptian government was playing a leading role in diplomatic negotiations concerning Palestine. The purpose of this study is to examine and to assess this growth of official Egyptian involvement in the Palestine question between 1936 and 1939. First, the specifics of the Egyptian government's positions and actions concerning Palestine, from the first confidential representations made to the British in the spring of 1936 to the lengthy negotiations surrounding the British White Paper of 1939, will be discussed. Secondly, an evaluation of the probable reasons behind this new concern with Palestine on the part of Egyptian leaders will be attempted. Finally, the consequences of the Egyptian government's growing involvement in the Palestine issue will be assessed. The bulk of the data in the study, and the conclusions it draws, derive from material in the records of the British Foreign Office; reports of official Egyptian interventions with the British concerning Palestine, British evaluations of Egyptian activities relating to Palestine. This core of material is supplemented by information from the contemporary Egyptian press as well as by data from later memoirs and analyses in secondary sources. The nature of the sources employed in the study imposes some limitations on its content. First, while those Egyptian governmental activities relating to Palestine which were directed towards the British can be relatively accurately described on the basis of the British record of those initiatives, the interaction of the Egyptian government with other parties—other Arab states, the Palestinian Arabs themselves, the Zionist movement and Jewish leaders—is referred to only occasionally, and often obliquely, in these sources. Secondly, any conclusions about the motives behind the involvement of successive Egyptian ministries in the Palestine issue are only provisional pending the fuller documentation which will become available when Egyptian archival materials are tapped. Within these limitations, however, it is hoped that the study can illuminate some aspects of the beginning of official Egyptian involvement in the Palestine question.

As far as I am concerned I remember that the first elements of Arab consciousness began to filter into my mind as a student in secondary schools, wherfrom I went out with my fellow schoolboys on strike on December 2nd [sic] of every year as a protest against the Balfour declaration whereby England gave the Jews a national home usurped unjustlu from its legal owners.

The syllabi on modern Middle Eastern history courses submitted by members of MESA were, not unnaturally, varied in general approach, in time span and in area covered. There were certain common elements, however, within the framework of which this syllabus has largely remained. Four such congruences were most important:1)the use of a chronological rather than a topical or problems approach in teaching the history of the modern Middle East (while particular topics or problems were often isolated within a particular time period, all of the syllabi submitted used a chronological framework);2)a general tendency to begin with a brief survey of the medieval history of the Middle East before beginning intensive treatment at the beginning of the nineteenth century;3)an emphasis on internal development and modernization rather than on political-diplomatic history;4)the frequent use of reading assignments (a chapter from one work, a number of pages from another) from a variety of semi-specialized or monographic works rather than reliance on one or more texts or readers.

(1970). The Egyptian blue shirts and the Egyptian Wafd, 1935–1938. Middle Eastern Studies: Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 77-95.

Concepts of "Easternm" or "Oriental" connectedness and solidarity developed considerable popularity in Egypt in the period between the two World Wars. Often termed "the Eastern idea" by its proponents, notions of the essential unity of the East and of the utility of closer interaction between its peoples were particularly in vogue in the 1920s, finding expression by publicists ranging across the spectrum of Egyptian opinion. The main organizational manifestation of the idea was the "Society of the Eastern Union" (Jam'iyyat al-Rabita al-Sharqiyya), a body devoted to promoting closer bonds between Eastern peoples. The ambiguity of the Eastern concept and the failure of efforts directed towards Eastern collaboration on the practical level, however, eventually led to the fading of the Eastern idea and the demise of the Eastern Union, with both the concept and the Society being replaced by ideas and activities aimed at the more precise goals of Arab/Muslim cooperation or unity. Ideas of Eastern relatedness and solidarity were not new in Arab and Egyptian thought in the interwar period. The concept of the division of the civilized world into two mutually exclusive civilizational zones each with its own unique operative principles, an "East" comprised of most or all of the Asian-African area and a "West" made up of Europe and its American offshoots, had already been articulated by the first generations of modernist Arab thinkers in the decades prior to World War I.1 Definitions of the East and notions as to what unified it differed from one thinker to another.