Egypt Ignited: How Fossil Capital Arrived on the Nile

A gripping history of nineteenth century Egypt reveals how steam, debt, and animal viral disease powered capitalism’s spread—turning the Nile Valley into an early front in the global war over energy and empire.

Egypt Ignited offers a gripping global history of how fossil capital—and the warming it unleashed—spread far beyond Europe. Beginning in the 1820s, Egypt became one of the first non-European countries to pursue steam-driven industrialization after Britain. This radically new account o...