A city consumed
Subtitle: urban commerce, the Cairo fire, and the politics of decolonization in Egypt
By: Nancy Y. Reynolds
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Stanford, California
Language: eng
Number of pages: 355
ISBN-13: 9780804781268
Subjects: Politics and government; Commerce; Nationalism; Consumption (Economics); History
Description: Though now remembered as an act of anti-colonial protest leading to the Egyptian military coup of 1952, the Cairo Fire that burned through downtown stores and businesses appeared to many at the time as an act of urban self-destruction and national suicide. The logic behind this latter view has now been largely lost. Offering a revised history, this book looks to the decades leading up to the fire to show that the lines between foreign and native in city space and commercial merchandise were never so starkly drawn.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The 'ever-melting' city; title: Department stores and downtown shopping; title: Anticolonial boycotts and national trade; title: Shoes, socks, and marketing mass consumption; title: Postwar commodity parables and the cracking of late colonialism; title: The Cairo fire and postcolonial consumption.