Scraping the surface: the techno-politics of modern streets in turn-of-twentieth-century Alexandria.

This article questions the viability of separating technology from politics by examining how the introduction of modern streets in Alexandria - newly paved with a hard and durable surface, fitted with tram-rails, lined with poles, illuminated, and built over a modern network of drainage and water supply pipes - affected the city's evolving politics and social life. This history, most literally 'from below', aims to reinstate the agency of materials and networks as a key element of the complex social evolution of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]