Harvests of Liberation - by Ahmad Shokr

About the Book

"In the first half of the twentieth century, a major change occurred in Egyptian nationalist understandings of imperialism and economic sovereignty. Where once the volatilities of foreign markets and capital were seen as the main threat, over time large landowners and their imperial allies were targeted as the principal obstacles to the country's industrial progress. The perceived locus of imperial domination shifted from the realm of circulation to the realm of production. Harvests of Liberation situates this transformation in the midcentury dynamics of agrarian capitalism in Egypt. Ahmad Shokr tells a story of decolonization through the lens of cotton, Egypt's prized export. He follows a range of actors - colonial advisors, nationalist leaders, agrarian reformers, merchant-financiers, landowners, and rural workers - whose interactions moved the levers of the cotton trade from institutions that facilitated accumulation on an imperial scale to new sites of control within the nation-state. Amidst depression and war, the transformation of Egypt's cotton economy prompted nationalists to embrace policies of land reform and industrialization and adopt a new conception of history. Ultimately, Shokr argues, these efforts set the stage for the construction of a postcolonial republic under Gamal Abdel Nasser, where national liberation became equated with national development"--

Book Synopsis

In the first half of the twentieth century, a major change occurred in Egyptian nationalist understandings of imperialism and economic sovereignty. Where once the volatilities of foreign markets and capital were seen as the main threat, over time large landowners and their imperial allies were targeted as the principal obstacles to the country's industrial progress. The perceived locus of imperial domination shifted from the realm of circulation to the realm of production. Harvests of Liberation situates this transformation in the midcentury dynamics of agrarian capitalism in Egypt.

Ahmad Shokr tells a story of decolonization through the lens of cotton, Egypt's prized export. He follows a range of actors--colonial advisors, nationalist leaders, agrarian reformers, merchant-financiers, landowners, and rural workers--whose interactions moved the levers of the cotton trade from institutions that facilitated accumulation on an imperial scale to new sites of control within the nation-state. Amidst depression and war, the transformation of Egypt's cotton economy prompted nationalists to embrace policies of land reform and industrialization and adopt a new conception of history. Ultimately, Shokr argues, these efforts set the stage for the construction of a postcolonial republic under Gamal Abdel Nasser, where national liberation became equated with national development.

Review Quotes

"Harvests of Liberation recasts the history of decolonization in modern Egypt. Attentive to both contingency and conditions of possibility, Ahmad Shokr brilliantly assembles a panoply of actors, institutions, and ideas to center agrarian capitalism and historicize distinct scales of accumulation--imperial and national--through the prism of cotton. Essential reading for all historians of capitalism." --Omnia El Shakry, Yale University

"By combining a deep understanding of the material process by which cotton is planted, picked, packed, shipped, and sold, with a detailed account of its political meaning during and after decolonization, this extraordinary book takes the growing literature on global commodity chains to a new level. Harvests of Liberation will justly gain an appreciative readership in global and economic history, Middle East Studies, postcolonial studies, and the history of Egypt." --Walter Johnson, Harvard University

About the Author

Ahmad Shokr is Associate Professor of History at Swarthmore College.