Topics/Themes:
• Outline of Byzantine rule
• The Islamic Conquests
• Outline of Islamic political history in Egypt up to the Mamluk Sultanates
• The Nile and its transformations
• Deserts, Delta and Oases
• Egypt and world commerce
• Egypt and imperial territorialities
Readings:
• Baladhuri (1968). The origins of the Islamic state : being a translation from the Arabic, accompanied with annotations, geographic and historic notes of the Kitâb futûh al-buldân of al-Imâm Abu-l ‘Abbâs Ahmad ibn-Jâbir al-Balâdhuri. P. Hitti. New York: AMS Press. (sections on the conquest of Egypt)
• Palme, B. (2007). The Imperial Presence: Government and Army. Egypt in the Byzantine world, 300-700. R. Bagnall (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Sayyid-Marsot, Afaf. (1987) A short history of modern Egypt. Cambridge: CUP (chapters 1 and 2)
• Muqaddasi, M. (1994). The best divisions for knowledge of the regions : a translation of Ahsan al-taqasim fi marifat al-aqalim. Basil Collins (trans.) Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing. (Chapter on Egypt)
• Bagnall, R. S. (1993). Egypt in late antiquity. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press. (Ch 1)
Political History and the Geopolitics of Egypt after.pdf