Egypt's Agricultural Development, 1800-1980: Technical and Social Change

by Alan Richards

Overview

One of the principal factors underlying Anwar Sadat's willingness to sign a peace treaty with Israel was the deplorable state of the Egyptian economy. Multiplying shortages, deteriorating infrastructures, and spiraling foreign debts fill the economic news from Egypt. A central component of this domestic crisis is agriculture. Agriculture forms the basis for a vast portion of the Egyptian economy, accounting for nearly half the country's employment and nearly a third of its gross national product, as well as providing materials for over half of its industry. This book describes and interprets the transformation of Egyptian agriculture from the beginning of cotton cultivation in the early nineteenth century to the current changes under Sadat. The author uses both microeconomic theory and social and political analysis to show how the interaction of social classes, technical change, government policy, and the international and state systems have shaped Egypt's agricultural development. Arguing that these forces are bound up in a complex web of reciprocal causation, he places the current dilemmas of Egyptian agriculture in historical perspective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367018528
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/07/2019
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alan Richards is professor of economics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. John Waterbury is William Stewart Tod Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Westview Replica Editions — Egyptian Units and Equivalents — Introduction — Primitive Accumulation in Egypt — Technical and Social Change, 1890-1914 — The Nature of Technical Change in Egyptian Agriculture, 1920-1940 — Stagnation and Inequality, 1920-1940 — Egyptian Agriculture Transformed, 1940-1980 — Conclusion