A controversial figure during his lifetime, the legacy of Sa'd Zaghlul, leader of the Egyptian revolution of 1919, has been disputed since his death in 1927. Memorials to Zaghlul are found in the central squares of towns and cities across Egypt, yet his reputation as a national leader has suffered since the 1952 revolution. This book offers the first detailed account of his life, drawing upon a large array of sources in English and Arabic, including Zaghlul's complete memoirs, to chart his religious education at Al-Azhar, where he acquired his reformist ideals, his role in the 1882 revolution, and his move from modernist to nationalist. The book shows that Zaghlul was a revolutionary of a liberal type, contradicting much of the official British reportage or by his critics in the liberal press. His core principles were civic rights, equality before the law, freedom of religion, speech, and press, the separation of powers and an independent judiciary. Contrary to some narratives, the failure to realize these ideals was not that he was an oligarch or demagogue, but that conservative forces inside and outside Egypt mobilized against him and his followers after the 1919 revolution and during his prime ministership in 1924. With the Middle East continuing to be dominated by autocratic governments, the story of Zaghlul's rise and fall is timely, reminding us that then as now barriers to more representative, and thus accountable, government are not cultural, but political.

James Whidden is Professor of History at Acadia University, Canada. He completed a PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Other publications include the books Monarchy and Modernity in Egypt and Egypt: British Colony, Imperial Capital.