Egypt just before political eruption! Turns of the century in Africa's northeastern corner have been critical moments, ushering in overt popular activism in the hope of radical political redirection " — as this volume's focus on Egypt's 19th-century fin-de-siècle demonstrates. This period witnessed crisscrossing and conflicting political currents as well as fluctuating economic, geopolitical, social and demographic conditions and cultural processes. Like Egypt's 20th-century fin-de-siècle, much of this ferment was a prelude to the more visible and politically eruptive events of the next decades, when Egypt's popular resistance burst onto the international scene. But its subterranean cast was no less dynamic for that.