Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition converted Enlightenment ideas into a concrete colonial blueprint.

Evidence

Napoleon transformed what was latent in Enlightenment discourse into a blueprint for cultural change. For him, the work of civilization included, in addition to encouraging trade, introducing the printing press, the French language, education, medicine, preventive hygiene, and the arts, as well as applying the principles of rational administration to fiscal, judicial, and land reform. With the help of the lnstitut, he proceeded on all these fronts during his short stay in Egypt. Such areworking and expansion of the definition of France’s responsibilities as a colonizer was in the logic of the Revolution, which saw itself as remaking French society and, in the process, receiving a mandate to transform all humankind. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 74

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader interest in how French republican ideology became a forced export, setting up the West African mission civilisatrice later in the book.