Framing the past: Historian, state and society

The practice of Egyptian modern historical scholarship in the 20th century has been the product of a complex interaction between intellectual values, academic institutions, state authority and political and social changes in society at large. Part of an emerging education system built on local and foreign traditions of scholarship, the academic tradition has had to engage with the influence of state authority in the latter’s attempts to promote scholarship supportive of its political legitimacy and its control of access to state archives. As a public and social form of knowledge, historical scholarship has also reflected different political and social perspectives across Egyptian society. In bringing these different strands together, this chapter illustrates how Egyptian historians and their works have constituted a field of intellectual and political interpretation that engages with the broader arena of national political discourse.