Historians inherited Mehmed Ali’s self-selected archival framing of Egyptian history.

Evidence

St. John did not fall in the trap, however, and his book did not proceed chronologically following the Pasha from his childhood to his old age, the narration culminating with his different military adventures. More than a hundred years after his death, though, books are still being written which, having been based on an archival material that had been cleverly selected in the first place, appear as if they had been dictated by the Pasha himself, and in his own words. They proceed with an account of the situation of Egypt before the appearance of the Pasha on its landscape, then proceed chronologically, following him through one after the other of his adventures, and end with his supposedly aborted attempts to gain independence from the Ottoman Empire highlighting Britain’s role in frustrating these attempts. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1685

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the critique of nationalist historiography as selectively archived - connects to broader postcolonial historiography debates.