Sadat and After : : Struggles for Egypt's Political Soul / / Raymond William Baker.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP eBook Package Archive 1893-1999
• VerfasserIn: Baker, Raymond William,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]; ©1990
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2013
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (365 p.)

Most analyses of Egyptian politics present the limitations and failures of official political life as the complete story of politics in Egypt. Raymond Baker's direct observation of Egyptian politics has convinced him that alternative political groups have sustained themselves and carved out spaces for promising political action despite official efforts at containment. In this compelling study, Baker recreates the public worlds of eight groups on the periphery of Egyptian politics. They range in their political stances from Communists to the Muslim Brothers and include shifting clusters of critical intellectuals who gather around influential journals or in research centers, as well as the quiescent aestheticists of the Wissa Wassef community. Taken together, the experiences of Egyptians in alternative groups reveal that Egyptians are more than the objects of diverse external pressures and more than the sufferers from multiple internal problems. They are also creative political actors who have stories to tell about the human potential to struggle for humane values and goals in the modern world. In examining Egypt from the margins rather than from the center, Baker proposes a new direction for Third World political studies. He suggests a way out of the impasse in the current development literature, which is fixed on a scientific study of causes and determinants, by focusing on actual political struggles and alternative political visions.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: Other Subjects of Politics -- Part I. PRESENT NARRATIVES, POSSIBLE FUTURES -- 1. How to Build a Better Future: Osman Ahmed Osman and the Arab Contractors -- 2. Fighting for Freedom and the Rule of Law: The Bar Association -- 3. Restoring Egypt as Engine of the Arab World: The Nasserist Current -- 4. Making Revolution Real: The Marxists of The Vanguard -- 5. Creative Empowerment: The Wissa Wassef School -- 6. Thinking in the National Interest: The Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies -- 7. Anticipating a Free Press: The Economic Ahram -- 8. Return to the Future: The Muslim Brothers -- Part II. KNOWING BETTER: GROUP POLITICS IN EGYPT AND THE THIRD WORLD -- 9. Re-Visioning Third World Politics: Narratives, Power, and Political Action -- 10. Unseen Struggles: Group Politics, Persons, and Possibilities -- Notes -- Notes