The Last Khedive of Egypt: Memoirs of Abbas Hilmi II

Synopsis

These memoirs - dictated by Abbas II to his secretary several decades after he had been exiled from Egypt in 1914 - provide a window on the mechanics of the strained relations between sovereign and the power occupying his country. They reveal a caring man, desirous of reform, with definite progressive ideas. He was disillusioned by sycophantic Egyptian politicians who, fearing British wrath, rarely supported their monarch.