Bankers-turned-historians are not a common sight in our field, and EzzelArab brings his expertise to where it is needed most. His book rightly argues for the significance of financial constraints and economic competition in the development of early nationalism as a reaction to foreign interference in Egyptian affairs before the

Urabi revolt. The author predates the notion of economic nationalism, defined as the struggle over the domination of state finances and the economy, to this period rather than to its common association with the establishment of Bank Misr in the early 1920s. Although the term “traditional elites” is somewhat misleading (see later), the book demonstrates that economic nationalism was developed as a response of local power groups to external threats to their interests.

Chapter 1 puts Egypt in the context of the global economy between 1850 and 1880, and the author lays out the history of finance businesses in this period. Chapter 2 investigates the “traditional elites,” who, EzzelArab suggests, came from two main social groups: first, ahl al-dhawāt, an Ottoman Egyptian elite who dominated the state bureaucracy and the army; and second, al-a

yān, or local notables distinguished by wealth and access to the central government. The two groups were different in the 1870s, but “the distinction between them was becoming blurred and there was a general convergence in their basic interests by that time” (p. 24). In fact, the term “traditional” is correct only if it implies that both groups existed in one form or another prior to the period under discussion. As the chapter itself shows, the 19th century brought much transformation to the Egyptian state and economy and, with it, to political and economic elites. During the last part of that century, both groups experienced much competition from local minorities, from Europeans in Egypt, and from growing foreign economic and political control. Hence, their interests converged, and a new venue for struggle was created in the form of embryonic nationalism.

Chapter 3 goes to the heart of the matter in discussing the immediate circumstances that gave rise to the creation of an elitist political movement in Egypt, whose power base was the National Assembly. Unlike Alexander Scholch, EzzelArab argues that, rather than being under the control of Khedive Ismail, the National Party first cooperated with Ismail against European domination and later even stepped in against him to pursue its own interests. The chapter focuses on a close analysis of al-lā

iḥa al-waṭaniyya (National Program), a document adopted by the National Assembly in anticipation of increased European meddling in Egyptian economic and political affairs. The main disagreement between a European perspective due to be expressed in the European-led Commission of Inquiry's final report and the pre-emptive program was the question of Egypt's financial solvency. The commission considered Egypt insolvent from the time it first defaulted on its financial obligations in April 1876. The program, by contrast, judged Egypt's financial situation less catastrophic. This in turn had a significant impact on the future. The commission envisioned a radical change in Egyptian finances, including growing European political control over the process, whereas the program suggested a gradual recovery enhanced by an increase in political involvement of the local elites through an adaptation of a European-style parliamentary model. This meant an increase in their power in relation to European delegates and the khedive. The author is at his best in exploring the financial alternative put forward by the program. He also shows that while the program seemingly trumpeted the interests of the entire nation, it preserved the economic privileges of those in power, laying the burden of paying the state's debt on the less fortunate—primarily, the peasantry.

Between April and June 1879, during the short national interregnum that followed, the local elites now in power tightened their squeeze on the countryside. This allowed for some improvement in financial matters but failed to secure an external loan (from the Rothschild bank) that was crucial to the success of recovery. The government also faced growing European opposition, which was the context for two calls to establish a national bank in Egypt, as discussed in Chapter 4. The idea behind the two calls was similar: although conceived as a local response to European economic incursion, and envisioned as garnering wide public participation, the “national” bank was to be a private rather than a government enterprise. EzzelArab dissects the two proposals, examining their feasibility and the underlying interests they served. Amin al-Shumayyil, a lawyer of Syrian origin, called for the establishment of a national bank as an instrument to convert external to internal debt, a plan biased toward urban commercial interests. The plan proposed by

Umar Pasha Lutfi and Muhammad Pasha Sultan was more feasible. It focused on an agricultural bank that would solve the village debt crisis and, by implication, transfers of land to foreigners. The latter reflected an elite emphasis on land as a source of wealth but also a better understanding of the role of the bank as a new financial institution that would foster economic growth. EzzelArab rightly suggests that both plans were “national” only in the sense that they aimed at “extracting control from European hands” (p. 120). As the Epilogue suggests, a wider perception of economic nationalism as a struggle to benefit the homeland as a whole and the establishment of financial vehicles to enhance this goal would have to wait until the early 20th century. Even then, as Robert Vitalis has shown, national interests were often congruent with those of Bank Misr and other business groups that competed for state rentierism.

Chapter 5 expands on the in-depth analysis of the National Program and the two calls to establish a national bank. The author investigates the dialectics according to which the state's financial constraints and economic competition stood at the core of the crisis but also triggered resistance and formulated the principal goals of the nascent nationalist movement. The events leading to Egypt's colonization dictated the nature of the response to foreign interference. EzzelArab rightly cites Jacques Berque, who commented that the Egyptian national grievance should be considered as “preeminently an economic and financial one. It began with the Debt and it was to end with the nationalization of the Canal” (p. 124). This is a significant reminder for current research on nationalism in Egypt, and the Middle East more broadly, that tends to focus on the cultural at the expense of the economic and political aspects of this phenomenon. The book is a specific reading into an early episode in Egyptian nationalism, and as such it suits the specialist rather than a wider audience. At the same time, perhaps without intending to, the author also invites further integrated research into the various aspects of nationalism.