ABSTRACT
Egypt had been waiting to break out of the confinements imposed by stagnant and destructive Ottoman-Mamluk rule for almost two centuries. Only in the 19th century, as a result of the Arab renaissance, did a cosmopolitan attitude become more widespread, although it only managed to gain a foothold in some restricted areas of Egyptian political and cultural life before the quest for rapid modernisation under President Nasser in the 1960s curtailed its advance. This chapter focuses on the ambiguity of the present cultural situation within both Egyptian society and Egypt's relationship with the rest of the world. Cosmopolitanism dawned in Egypt with the introduction of a short-lived Hellenic influence, only to decline during the subsequent Coptic era. Cosmopolitan attitudes were replaced by an intense quest for Egyptian authenticity, as reflected by the specifically Egyptian Jacobin doctrine of Christianity. The Egyptian military revolution of 1952 however, demonstrated the essential incompatibility of cultural cosmopolitanism and nationalism.
