Egypt

Despite a total lack of evidence, the belief that grains of wheat found in Ancient Egyptian tombs could produce bountiful crops was surprisingly hardy. 

The story of the transportation of three obelisks to London, Paris and New York captures the 19th-century mania for all things Egyptian.

The ideas of a French philosopher provided the great Egyptian novelist with a way of assessing the good and the bad in his nation’s past.

Maurice Shock explains how Gladstone, a deeply moralistic and liberal statesman, came to embark along the path of intervention, conquest and occupation.

On the eve of the Treaty of Amiens, writes D.G. Chandler, the French Army was eliminated from Egypt, and news of the victory heartened the British public.

Having lost hope of invading the British Isles, in 1797 the French Directory made a bold attempt to cut off their enemy's East-Indian trade routes. The agent they chose was Napoleon Bonaparte, a brilliant young general, D.G. Chandler writes, already fascinated by the Eastern scene.

During the twenty-four years of Lord Cromer’s consulship, writes Peter Mansfield, British engineers were active on the Nile.

 “I am a Jingo in the best acceptation of that sobriquet... To see England great is my highest aspiration, and to lead in contributing to that greatness is my only real ambition.” By Edgar Holt. 

Had Napoleen been killed or taken prisoner on his way to Egypt, writes W.A.P. Phillips, there would have been no Consulate and no Empire.