The Power of Representation traces the emergence of modern Egyptian national identity from the mid-1870s through the 1910s. During this period, a new class of Egyptian urban intellectuals--teachers, lawyers, engineers, clerks, accountants, and journalists--came into prominence. Adapting modern ideas of individual moral autonomy and universal citizenship, this group reconfigured religiously informed notions of the self and created a national sense of -Egyptian-ness- drawn from ideas about Egypt's large peasant population. The book breaks new ground by calling into question the notion,...