Childhood and Colonial Modernity in Egypt - (Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood) by Heidi Morrison (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were pivotal in contemporary Egyptian history. The country searched for an identity in the face of intensifying western imperialism, the emerging nation-state, changing gender roles, and a rising middle class. A new cultural conception of childhood emerged in Egypt that had a synergistic and synonymous relationship with this process of modernization. Modernization cannot be separated from reconceptualization of categories of age. This book examines the transformations of Egyptian childhoods that occurred across gender, class, and rural/urban divides. It also questions the role of nostalgia and representation of childhood in illuminating key underlying political, social, and cultural developments in Egypt. The book uses unexplored Arabic sources such as the children's press and literature; as well as more familiar Arabic sources, such as autobiographies and the writings of Egyptian intellectuals--whose discussion of childhood has been so far ignored"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

This book examines the transformations of Egyptian childhoods that occurred across gender, class, and rural/urban divides. It also questions the role of nostalgia and representation of childhood in illuminating key underlying political, social, and cultural developments in Egypt.

Review Quotes

"This work situates children's lives and agency within the local frame of Egypt and in so doing contributes to a growing body of work on 'non-western childhoods.' ... this is a pioneering work on a highly important and much-neglected topic. No doubt Childhood and Colonial Modernity in Egypt will pave the way for what may very well blossom into a new school for childhood studies in Egypt and the wider region of the Middle East and North Africa." (Linda Herrera, The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, Vol.10 (1), 2017)

About the Author

Heidi Morrison is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, USA. She is the editor of The Global History of Childhood Reader (2012).