Mehmet Ali was the first non-Western ruler to grasp the Industrial Revolution’s significance

Evidence

As the historians Goldschmidt and Davidson note, “Mehmet Ali was the first non-Western ruler to grasp the significance of the Industrial Revolution. He realized that a modernized army would need textile factories to make its tents and uniforms, dockyards to build its ships, and munitions plants to turn out guns and bayonets.” This realization resulted in the wholesale restructuring and modernization of Egyptian society. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 299

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Historians portray Mehmed Ali’s reforms as a master-planned modernization with independence aims; American territorial expansion, slavery, and cotton drove the Industrial Revolution symbiotically — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 199