Three arrivals, one review
Jul. 20th, 2011 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wedjatThere were three new arrivals today: Vintage Alexandria: Photographs of the City, 1860-1960, Michael Haag, Paris Along the Nile: Architecture in Cairo from the Belle Epoque, Cynthia Myntti, and Behind Closed Eyes: Dreams and Nightmares in Ancient Egypt, Kasia Maria Szpakowska. The first two are the last of a set of books I purchased from The Book Depository — mostly "coffee-table"-esque books, which include the one I'm also reviewing in this post.
The latter, by Kasia Szpakowska, is actually a "rental", in the sense that I just checked it out of my local library. It's been a difficult book to track down: I first found reference to it, and read bits of it, while researching at the State Library of Victoria. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts (and the better efforts of some friends), I've not been able to find a reasonably priced copy — reasonable in the sense of not requiring I pawn a kidney.
Likewise difficult to find has been Lisa Giddy's Egyptian Oases, but I will prevail!
This is more of a "popular history" book, rather akin to a coffee table book rather than the "popular" sense of Barbara Mertz's Red Land, Black Land or Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs. However, that's not to say that the book is totally without historical merit. There is a bibliography ‐ of sorts; it sees rather stunted — but most of the works are in French. This is to be expected, however, as this is the translation of a work originally published in French: Un voyage en Egypte au temps de derniers rois, or, A voyage to Egypt at the time of the Last Kings.
I personally feel that the French title is much more poetic: "cruising" has a certain modern meaning that I feel isn't quite suited to this sense, and while the book certainly covers the trips down the Nile in dahabeah, it isn't the only topic of discussion.
It's a rather whirl-wind tour of Egypt in the early 1900s: we have Thomas Cook's burgeoning empire of world travel and pre-packaged "adventure" (as adventurous as reading about it from your arm-chair — from your Baedecker), the last gasp of colonial Egypt under British rule, as well as the indications of what is to come in the post-colonial era, coupled with gorgeous prose and even more beautiful photographs.
Google provided this review (in French) of the original work; it has some clips and photographs from the book, which, while not being my favourites, certainly show of some of the beautiful snap-shots.
There are a variety of interesting factoids, however, and a lot of scene-setting that, while not necessarily useful for my research project, can at least get tucked away in the back of my head to be recalled at the appropriate time.
The latter, by Kasia Szpakowska, is actually a "rental", in the sense that I just checked it out of my local library. It's been a difficult book to track down: I first found reference to it, and read bits of it, while researching at the State Library of Victoria. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts (and the better efforts of some friends), I've not been able to find a reasonably priced copy — reasonable in the sense of not requiring I pawn a kidney.
Likewise difficult to find has been Lisa Giddy's Egyptian Oases, but I will prevail!
This is more of a "popular history" book, rather akin to a coffee table book rather than the "popular" sense of Barbara Mertz's Red Land, Black Land or Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs. However, that's not to say that the book is totally without historical merit. There is a bibliography ‐ of sorts; it sees rather stunted — but most of the works are in French. This is to be expected, however, as this is the translation of a work originally published in French: Un voyage en Egypte au temps de derniers rois, or, A voyage to Egypt at the time of the Last Kings.
I personally feel that the French title is much more poetic: "cruising" has a certain modern meaning that I feel isn't quite suited to this sense, and while the book certainly covers the trips down the Nile in dahabeah, it isn't the only topic of discussion.It's a rather whirl-wind tour of Egypt in the early 1900s: we have Thomas Cook's burgeoning empire of world travel and pre-packaged "adventure" (as adventurous as reading about it from your arm-chair — from your Baedecker), the last gasp of colonial Egypt under British rule, as well as the indications of what is to come in the post-colonial era, coupled with gorgeous prose and even more beautiful photographs.
Google provided this review (in French) of the original work; it has some clips and photographs from the book, which, while not being my favourites, certainly show of some of the beautiful snap-shots.
There are a variety of interesting factoids, however, and a lot of scene-setting that, while not necessarily useful for my research project, can at least get tucked away in the back of my head to be recalled at the appropriate time.
