AbdelAziz EzzelArab

Topics of Interest:
The Economic and Business History of Egypt, Political Economy

Countries/Regions of Interest:
Egypt, Middle East

List of Publications

Books:
European Control and Egypt’s Traditional Elites – A Case Study in Elite Economic Nationalism. The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002

al –iqtisad al-siyasi lil – qahr [The Political Economy of Oppression] with an introduction by Galal Amin, Dar Al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi, 1991

Articles in Refereed Journals:
 “The Fiscal and Constitutional Program of Egypt's Traditional Elites in 1879: A Documentary and Contextual Analysis of ‘al-La’iha al-Wataniyya’ (‘The National Program’)” Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient (JESHO) 52 (2009), 301-324

“The Experiment of Sharif Pasha’a Cabinet (1879): An Inquiry into the Historiography of Egypt’s Elite Movement,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 36(2004), 561-589

Articles in Edited Volumes:
 “An Ode to Andrew Watson Flipping through the papers of an Old Student (1977): The Appropriation of Surplus in Eighteenth-Century Egypt and its Socio-Economic Impact,” in Worlds of Economics and History. Essays in Honour of Andrew M. Watson (Brian Catlos, ed.), Valencia: University of Valencia Press (2009)

 “Notes on the Political Economy of Eighteenth Century Egypt: The Ruling Class and its Socio-Economic Impact.” In Herbert Thompson (ed), Studies in Egyptian Political Economy, Cairo Papers in Social Sciences, vol II, monograph III, 1979. (Last reprint 1992)

Others:
“Egypt’s Private Bankers in the 19th Century: A Nascent Domestic Bourgeoisie?” The Chronicles, Economic and Business History Research Centre (EBHRC), AUC, November 07.

 “The Nurturing of Wealth: The First Call for a National Bank in Egypt,” The Chronicles, The Economic and Business History Research Centre (EBHRC), AUC, January-March 2006

 “In Anticipation of Another Harb?” The Chronicles, The Economic and Business History Research Centre (EBHRC), AUC, October 2005

AbdelAziz EzzelArab is Professor at the History Department of the American University in Cairo and Director of the Economic and Business History Research Centre (EBHRC) at the university.

After completing his BA summa cum laude at the AUC in 1975, and an MA at the University of Toronto in 1977, he worked for over a decade in the financial sector at corporations including the Egyptian American Bank (EAB) in Cairo, Barclays Bank (Bahrain), and Arab Banking Corporation (ABC) Bahrain. His last institutional responsibility as a banker in 1990 was managing the LDC debt portfolio of ABC in Bahrain, some $2.2 billion at that time, as an AVP of that bank.

EzzelArab returned full-time to graduate studies in 1991 to fulfill an academic passion, and in particular a passion for teaching. In 2000 he completed a PhD at the Institute of Islamic Studies of McGill University with a dissertation titled “Nineteenth Century Expressions of Economic Nationalism in Egypt,’’ and graduated with Distinction.

His teaching career began at AUC in 1997 and continued for 3 years on ABD basis. He served as Director of Middle East Studies in 1999 and, subsequently, as Director of Core Curriculum (2001-2003). At MES, he began a ‘Salon Series’ titled “The Experience of the Arab Intellectual,” a periodic newsletter, Barqiyya, and a film series titled “Images of the Other in the Arab Cinema.”

In 2002, he proposed the formation of a documentation and research centre that would promote business history as a new perspective in studying the political economy of Egypt and, eventually, of the Middle East. EBHRC was established two years later with the support of an informal consortium of US universities. Since its inception, EBHRC provided training ground for recent graduates with relevant interests. The centre compiles oral and print narratives, as well as private papers, of individuals who played key roles in public policy, enterprise, and intellectual life. It publishes a magazine, The Chronicles, and it holds an annual forum on ‘The Economic and Business History of Egypt and the Middle East’ which brings together scholars, students, and practitioners. EzzelArab was Founding Director up to 2011, and returned as Director in September 2014.

EzzelArab developed and taught courses on the modern and contemporary political economy of Egypt in its global context, including courses on nineteenth-century Egypt in the modern world market, on the business history of Egypt since the late nineteenth century, on the Bank Misr experience, on Nasserite Egypt, and on Egyptian political economy post 1974. He also introduced narrative-based courses largely structured on oral narratives garnered through EBHRC.

He published two books: European Control and Egypt’s Traditional Elites-A Case Study in Elite Economic Nationalism (2003) where he studies the class foundations of early calls for a national bank in 1879, and al-Iqtisad al-Siyasi lil-Qahr (1991) which is a study in distribution policies and mechanisms in late eighteenth-century Egypt. His publications also include a couple of articles in refereed journals as well as a few items in other venues.