ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the historical developments from the early 19th century to World War Two that led to the emergence of Egypt as an increasingly autonomous political entity within the Ottoman Empire, European economic and British military domination from the 1870s, the protracted struggle for independence, and the relative consolidation of the monarchy as a political regime propped up by Britain but increasingly contested domestically. It illustrates the great power rivalries which allowed a political entrepreneur, Mehmed Ali, his allies, and successors to invest heavily in large armed forces, build other state institutions, and initiate or simply prompt far-reaching economic and societal transformations before European domination partly arrested and reconfigured these developments. It lays the foundation for the subsequent analysis of the relative strengths and weaknesses of independent Egypt which in various ways reflect the extent and limits of these earlier transformations.
