The paradoxes of nineteenth-century colonialism in the Middle East revealed through the accounts of three working class European travelers to Egypt
This book tells the stories of two French women and a French African man, travelers connected to the Saint-Simonian utopian socialists, who came to work for the Egyptian government in the 1830s. They have been marginalized and excluded from the historical record, because they were women, not part of the colonial elite, or of mixed racial heritage. This history brings them alive through extensive archival research and vibrant storytelling.
There is Suzanne Voilquin, a practicing midwife in Cairo who was involved in left-wing popular politics in Paris and became the editor of one of the first feminist newspapers ever published (1832–34). The second traveler, Thomas Ismayl Urbain, was born in French Guyana, where his mother was born a slave and his father was a French sea captain. “Jehan d’Ivray” is the pen name of the third traveler, a teenage woman who married an Egyptian studying medicine in France, and traveled with him to Egypt in 1879. She wrote more than twenty books, including a retrospective look at Suzanne Voilquin and women in the Saint-Simonian movement, bringing the story full circle to another generation.
Their stories brilliantly illustrate the paradoxes of nineteenth century colonialism in Egypt. Suzanne Voilquin grew up in the Parisian working class and sympathized deeply with Egyptians but initially exoticized the differences between Egypt and her home country, while Urbain, a literary pioneer in black pride, nevertheless joined the French army and saw his role in the colonial occupation as a means of helping indigenous people. These characters transcend the neat binary of East and West and offer a rich, nuanced window onto the experiences of French travelers in Egypt during the nineteenth century.
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
ISBN: 9781649033857
Number of pages: 362
Dimensions: 229 x 152 mm
"In this well-written, immaculately researched book, the Saint-Simonians in Egypt are finally getting the attention they deserve. John David Ragan shows how three hitherto obscure but fascinating individuals applied their ideals and dreams in practical ways to mid-nineteenth-century Egypt. Theirs is a meaningful, adventure-filled story that is well worth the telling—and one that is told very well."—Jason Thompson, author of A History of Egypt and Wonderful Things"John David Ragan sheds light on the fascinating lives of three ordinary European travelers and what they encountered in nineteenth-century Egypt. Ragan’s prose is fluid and engaging. His story is captivating, his approach rigorous, and his intellectual curiosity matched by detective-quality research. He expertly navigates through the rich blend of perspectives these travelers convey that are deeply empathetic but also sprinkled with orientalist biases. Our reward is to gain a unique street-level view of nineteenth-century Egyptian society that had remained inaccessible to the better-known aristocratic travelers to the region."—Alexander Kitroeff, author of The Greeks and the Making of Modern Egypt“I thoroughly enjoyed reading this entire book and would like both historians and general readers to read it, too. John Ragan’s command of the sources is impressive, his style is lucid, the portraits of the three main characters are vivid and credible, and the reader does not need to be a historian to know what he is writing about and the points he wants to make. Forgotten Saint-Simonian Travelers in Egypt fills a much-neglected lacuna in the travel literature on Egypt by bringing the accounts of sojourns in Egypt by working-class Europeans to the English-speaking world, and by giving the Saint-Simonians the attention that has long been their due.”—Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., The Pennsylvania State University
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