ABSTRACT
"Egypt is the gift of the Nile", wrote Herodotus twenty-five hundred years ago. Kipling, in turn, described the Nile as "that little damp trickle of life". Both comments emphasize the role of a single river as the fundamental element in the existence of this ancient land. In few countries are the basic geographical factors and their direct influences so plainly imprinted as in Egypt. Over the centuries, Egyptian civilization developed a stability that enabled it to survive, if not always to repel, foreign incursions. In 642 CE, the Muslim Arab conquest brought a momentous and permanent transformation of Egypt. Ottoman control was tenuous after the late 1700s, but technically it continued until 1914. From 1805, Egypt was locally ruled by the Muhammad Ali dynasty under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. Contemporary Egypt was born in a bloodless military coup on July 23, 1952, sending Faruq, last king of the Alid line, into exile.
