ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to trace the main components of Rashid al-Barrawi's political thought in the period prior to the July Revolution. It discusses the sources of his administrative socialism and the ways in which he constructed his theory of modernization, central to his The Military Coup in Egypt. Rashid al-Barrawi proposed reforms that contrast sharply with the Society's argument for the establishment of a self-regulatory democratic order built on the liberal values of selfdiscipline and self-control. Turning the modernist project into a clear ideology, he expressed the aspirations of the rising middle class intellectuals and reformers who yearned for a radical break with the past without having to go through either a right-wing, authoritarian or a left-wing, communist revolution. Rashid al-Barrawi's theory of history is remarkable because it is pieced together from highly diverse sources and because he tries to set up an economic interpretation of Egyptian history and explain its backwardness in comparative terms.
