A French colonialist bestseller reshaped Egyptian elite education decisions

Evidence

The translation of Demolins’ work had a wide impact in Egypt, among a certain social class. It aroused immediately a great deal of discussion in the press. Several years later it was recalled by a leading Egyptian intellectual as one of the few works that ‘spread among the masses a scientific basis for development, so that people could apply its principles to their situation’. The book became widely known among educated men, even in provincial Egypt. The governor of a province of upper Egypt told a French traveller that he had read Demolins’ book, soon after it had been published. He had decided to send his son, who was a student at the government preparatory school in Cairo to complete his studies at the new school established by Demolins near Paris. The famous Ecole des Roches was set up by Demolins following the success of his book on Anglo-Saxon superiority. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 360

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Pairs with ‘Grafting & Growth’ in spirit? No — actually this is a concrete case of knowledge transfer via translation and schooling, useful for any argument about how colonial ideas travel through institutions.