Egyptian intellectuals translated European imperial self-analysis into reform literature

Evidence

Ahmad Fathï Zaghlül, brother of the Wafd Party leader and future prime minister Sa`d Zaghlül, published Sirr altaqaddum al-Anglo-Saxïyïn?, a translation of the book À quoi tient la supériorité des anglo-saxons? (What Is the Secret of Anglo-Saxon Superiority?), written in 1898 by Edmond Demolins. This book explored the successes of the British empire, looking for formulas for other societies to emulate, and became popular throughout Europe. Ahmad Zaghlül prefaced his translation with an admonition to his Egyptian reader to “compare their customs to our customs, their knowledge to our knowledge, their concerns to our concerns, their abilities to our abilities” for the formula of success. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 757

Categorization

• XREF: Demolins’ 1898 ‘supériorité des anglo-saxons’ was a bestseller of national-decline literatures across Europe — compare its reception in Egypt with its use in self-strengthening debates in other colonized contexts (e.g. Japan, Russia).
• QUESTION: Is there an obvious ‘compare thy neighbor’ genre study here — how colonized societies across Africa and Asia used European national-character polemics, and what it did to their own sense of hierarchy?