Artisan Entrepreneurs in Cairo and Early-Modern Capitalism (1600-1800).

• Author: Rafeq, Abdul-karim
• Position: Book review

Artisan Entrepreneurs in Cairo and Early-Modern Capitalism (1600-1800). By NELLY HANNA. Middle East Studies beyond Dominant Paradigms. Syracuse: SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2011. Pp. ix + 244. $34.95.

Nelly Hanna has already published two books that deal with the early modern period in Ottoman Egyptian history: Making Big Money in 1600: The Life and Times of Isma'il Abu Taqiyya, Egyptian Merchant (Syracuse, 1998) and In Praise of Books: A Cultural History of Cairo's Middle Class, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century (Syracuse, 2003). The theme of the first book is to prove through the career of a prominent Cairene merchant the rise of an indigenous form of capitalism in Egypt as early as the 1600s. In Praise of Books reveals the existence of a lively middle-class Egyptian culture during the first three centuries of Ottoman rule. Her new study's goal, according to Hanna, is to incorporate the artisans in history and give them more visibility prior to Egypt's reception of the European capitalist system by showing how artisans in Cairo adapted to the changing conditions by undertaking entrepreneurial activities. The book is divided into seven chapters, the first of which is titled "Defining a Framework for the Economic History of Early-Modern Egypt," and the last is a short conclusion, "What Remained of Artisan Entrepreneurship a Hundred Years Later?"

In chapter one Hanna explains what is meant by pre-capitalist economy in Egypt, examines the impact of the Ottoman economy on the guild system, and highlights the role of the artisans, alongside the merchants, in the process of commercialization at the level of local production and artisan economy. By choosing the two influential crafts of the oil pressers and the textile artisans, Hanna clearly explains certain dimensions of the changing functions of guilds within the context of artisan capitalism.

Chapter two, "Artisan Entrepreneurs: Capitalist Practices in a Precapitalist Environment," places the artisan entrepreneurs in the context of world trade. Hanna explains how artisans were not all merchants and not all producers, but they mixed both occupations and produced a combination of traditional and capitalist practices. This is evident in the involvement of artisans in the Red Sea trade made up of spices, coffee, and textiles. Under the title of "A Period of Unprecedented Social Mobility for Nonelites," chapter three focuses largely on the textile workers, of whom many were initially Mamluk military...