This title explores an understudied moment in Egypt's modern history. The end of the 19th century: Egypt just before political eruption! Popular activism begins to stir in the hope of radical political change. Crisscrossing and conflicting political currents run alongside fluctuating economic, geopolitical, social and demographic conditions and cultural processes. This wide-ranging volume is the first study to address the dynamism of a period that was crucial to the more visible and politically explosive events of the 20th century and the formation of modern Egypt. It is a general introduction and 13 case studies challenge the prevailing view that the 1890s in Egypt was a time of withdrawal and quiescence. It sheds light on the period before the 1919 Egyption Revolution. It engages with questions of political engagement, shifting gender roles, geographical ambiguities, the emergence of new media, community identity formation and changing artistic formations. It considers the parallels between that turn-of-the-century and the more recent one, with its equally 'quiet' ferment preceding the Egyptian popular uprising of 2011.