Investigating key features of contemporary Egypt, this volume includes Egypt's modern history, politics, economics, the legal system, environment, and its media and modes of cultural expression.

Introduction; PART I History Introduction: Occupation, independence, revolution; 1 Building the Egyptian state? Infrastructural systems, education, and urbanization (1919-2011); 2 The ideological roots of authoritarianism in Egypt; 3 Egypt's foreign policy from Faruq to Mubarak; 4 Activism and contentious politics in Egypt: The case of the student movement; 5 Framing the past: Historian, state and society; PART II Politics Introduction: The evolution of military rule in Egypt; 6 Genesis of coup-proofing in Egypt: Civil-military relations under King Faruq and beyond; 7 The fingers of the "invisible hand": Egypt's government institutions; 8 Islamism in Egypt; 9 Civil society and revolution (2000-present); 10 Egypt's post-uprising foreign policy; PART III Economy Introduction: A brief history of nation, state, and market; 11 State-business relations in neoliberal Egypt: The global political economy of subordinate integration; 12 Why Egypt's trade policy failed to improve its external competitiveness; 13 Egypt's foreign direct investment regime: Evolution and limitations; 14 The political economy of workers' remittances in Egypt; 15 Encroachments: Land, power and predation; PART IV Law and human rights Introduction; 16 Judges, elections, and constitutional politics after the 2011 Revolution; 17 Lawyers and politics: Lawyering and counter-lawyering in Egypt; 18 Law, exceptional courts and revolution in modern Egypt; 19 The Egyptian human rights movement: Between political autonomy and accommodation of authoritarianism; PART V Natural and built environments Introduction: Visions and realities of the struggle for development; 20 Sustainable water resource management in Egypt; 21 Egypt's conflicting urbanism: Informality versus new desert development; 22 Livability of Egyptian cities; 23 The cultural heritage of Egypt's cities: Burden or resource?; PART VI Media and popular culture Introduction: Divergent trajectories of creativity and coercion; 24 The culture police: Manning the barricades of allowable art and culture; 25 Media ownership in Egypt (2000-2020): Categories and configurations; 26 Tweeting the revolution: The evolution of social media use in Egypt's turbulent times; 27 Ring-fenced religion? Egypt's religious media between faith and politics; 28 Cooperativism, revolution and the 'digital turn': Assessing recent Egyptian film collectives; 29 The rise of indie music from the heart of Tahrir Square: Politics and popular music in Egypt