Two Books on the Campaign
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During 1998 two books in Arabic were published in Cairo that deal with the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. The first (in two volumes) carry the titles The French Campaign: Enlightenment orFraud (Al Hilal, March 1998, no 567); and The French Campaign: in Judgement (Al Hilal, October 1998, no 574) are written by Prof. Laila Anan, Professor of French civilization at Cairo. The second is by Helmy Nimnim, writer and journalist with Al-Hilal and carries the title TheEgyptians and the Campaign.
Prof. Laila's first volume revolves around the myth of Napoleon whereby she refutes the hallow that permeates French writings which dealt with the campaign on Egypt and Syria on the basis that it was an incident apart from French wars of the era. Prof. Anan's book is not a history of the campaign, as the author says, but an exploration of the discourse which made of Napoleon a myth and of Egypt a mythologized land and a target for French "enlightenment" at the same time.
The second volume under the title The French Campaign in Judgement is a review of eye witness accounts of the campaign and the comments of such historians who did not fall victim to Napoleon myth. Thus, Prof. Anan translates to us the French point of view that she in the first volume refutes and in the second brings it to bear to stress her initial thesis which is that the hallow which surrounds Napoleon's campaign is a figment of an imagination that did not take into account the Egyptian view point nor conditions in Egypt at the time.
While Prof. Anan concentrates on French sources Mr. Nimnim approaches the subject from the Egyptian point of view and divides it into three sections: the religious leaders, the Copts, and women. The book represents the other side of the story and together they complete a picture. Mr. Nimnim too refutes the narratives adopted by both liberal and fundamentalist discourse with regards the behavior of women during the campaign and reminds us that neither prominent religious leaders nor prominent Copts in the community confronted the invasion; it was rather the oppressed women and men alike who constituted the bulwark of the confrontation.

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