Interpreting the Orient: Travellers in Egypt and the Near East (Durham Middle East Monographs) (v. 2) [Hardcover]

Paul Starkdy (Author), Paul Starkey (Editor), Janet Starkey (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Durham Middle East Monographs | Publication Date: January 2001

Egypt and the Near East have enchanted many people over the centuries. Travellers from the West have journeyed to this region for a variety of motives: in pursuit of knowledge, power, diplomacy and trade, for pleasure and adventure, on pilgrimage, and to plunder and discover the exotic - or sometimes simply to discover themselves. Some have been influenced more than others by what they saw, bringing back tangible evidence of their visits in the form of antiquities or other collectors' items; many have used their observations and experiences for their own literary and artistic ends. This collection of papers has its origin in the conference "Travellers to Egypt and the Near East" held at St Catherine's College, Oxford in July 1997. They are arranged approximately in chronological order - though with so many common themes running through them, a strict sequence according to a single criterion has proved almost impossible. In addition to the chronological sequence, the reader will detect a number of common themes - religion, gender, economics, colonialism, perceptions of literature and art and so forth that haunt the essays and form webs of interconnection between them. The papers included in this volume range from those on Carl Haag and Gertrude Bell to gender politics in a colonial context. These essays provide a fascinating array of perspectives on a set of historical, literary and cultural relationships about which debate is certain to continue well into the twenty-first century.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Starkey studied Arabic and Persian at Oxford and now teaches at the University of Durham. He is the author of From the Ivory Tower: A Critical Study of Tawfiq al-Hakim (1987) and co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature (1988). Janet Starkey studied social anthropology in Edinburgh and London and now teaches material culture at the University of Durham. She has worked extensively in the museum field, and is particularly interested in the ethnography of Egypt and Sudan

Product Details

• Hardcover: 277 pages
• Publisher: Ithaca; 1 edition (January 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 086372258X
• ISBN-13: 978-0863722585
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,084,759 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3.0 out of 5 stars Pleasant but routine accounts of Europe travelers to the Middle East..., October 28, 2005

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This review is from: Interpreting the Orient: Travellers in Egypt and the Near East (Durham Middle East Monographs) (v. 2) (Hardcover)

Many of the chapters in these companion volumes [Unfolding the Orient: Travellers in Egypt and the Near East. Edited by Paul and Janet Starkey. Reading, U.K.: Ithaca, 2001.] (which are in rough chronological order) offer pleasant but routine accounts of Europe travelers to the Middle East in past centuries. Some, however, rise above the ordinary to provide real insight into relations between the two civilizations. Philip Mansel's essay on the Grand Tour to the Ottoman Empire conveys the cheerful sense of superiority Europeans felt toward Middle Easterners ("the dear Arabians and Turks are quite darlings," was the 1816 comment of the princess of Wales while visiting their dear countries). Mary Ann Fey shows the striking contrast between the observations of Turkey by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in 1716-18 and those of her male contemporaries; they saw nothing but subjugation of Muslim women but she appreciated their ability to own property (precisely because she lacked this right) and ended up calling the Turkish females "(perhaps) freer than any ladies in the universe."

The startling chapter by Neil Cooke delves into the practice of some male Britons in Egypt to buy themselves female slaves; he focuses on a man who at times offered their favors to his friends and ended taking one of them back with him to the United Kingdom, where she lived out her days, dying in 1883. Nadia Gindy analyses Anthony Trollope's two slight but amusing stories about British tourists to Egypt based on his time there, with an emphasis on the characteristically Trollopian humor (a woman who starts handing out baksheesh by the Pyramids resembles "a piece of sugar covered with flies"; she later explains that "she would not go to the Pyramids again, not if they were to be given to her for herself as ornaments for her garden").

The set's tour de force is a long inquiry by John Rodenbeck into the European habit of dressing like Turks and Arabs. Starting with a quote from the invariably wrong analysis of Edward Said that this was a source of "secret European power," Rodenbeck goes on, through a dazzling display of quotations and other references, to show the true reasons for this custom. The main one safety; to dress in Western style before 1850 was to court danger. Sometimes (as for women in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan today), the reason was to comply with local regulations. Or it had to do with fashion or bravura or seduction. The one thing it did not have to do with, contrary to the ignorant theorizing of Said and his minions, was spying or displaying cultural aggression.