Foreword by Penelope Lively Cairo is a city of extremes. On its
chaotic streets BMWs driven by sharp-suited businessmen compete for
space with donkey carts laden with farm produce. In its mosques the
wealthy and the destitute pray side by side. The largest metropolis
in Africa since the Middle
Ages, it was in Ibn Battutah's words "the mother of
cities." With a present-day population of around eighteen
million, this sprawling metropolis is home to one thousand new
migrants every day, drawn to the seething intensity of a modern,
cosmopolitan capital that blends together the cultures of the
Middle East and Europe. The fabled city on the banks of the River
Nile, once home to pharaohs and emperors, now forms a focal point
of the Islamic faith and of the Arab world. Andrew Beattie explores
the turbulent past and vibrant present of this city where the
enduring legacies of the ancient
Egyptians, the early Coptic Church, British colonial rule and the
modernist zeal of the post-independence era have all left their
mark. -- CITY OF WRITERS, CONQUERORS AND REVOLUTIONARIES: From Mark
Twain and William Thackeray to Paul Theroux and Naguib Mahfouz,
Alexander the Great to Napoleon, and
Lawrence of Arabia to Colonel Nasser. -- CITY OF MONUMENTS AND
SPECTACLE: From the Pyramids of Giza and Saqqara to the Mosque of
Mohammed Ali; from the teeming bazaars of the muski to Coptic and
Islamic festivals. -- CITY OF ANCIENT AND MODERN: Where ancient
churches and mosques sit cheek-by-jowl
with modern skyscrapers and busy highways; where prosperous suburbs
lie close to areas of third world poverty and deprivation.
