Cairo: The City Victorious - Paperback

by Max Rodenbeck (Author)

From a noted journalist who has spent much of his life in Cairo, here is a dazzling cultural excavation of that most ancient, colorful, and multifaceted of cities. The seat of pharaohs and sultans, the prize of conquerors from Alexander to Saladin to Napoleon, Cairo--nicknamed "the Victorious"--has never ceased reinventing herself.

Front Jacket

From a noted journalist who has spent much of his life in Cairo, here is a dazzling cultural excavation of that most ancient, colorful, and multifaceted of cities. The seat of pharaohs and sultans, the prize of conquerors from Alexander to Saladin to Napoleon, Cairo--nicknamed "the Victorious"--has never ceased reinventing herself.
With intimate knowlege, humor, and affection, Rodenbeck takes us on an insider's tour of the magnificent city: its backstreets and bazaars, its belly-dance theaters and hashish dens, its crowded slums and fashionable salons, its incomparably rich past and its challenging future. Cairo: The City Victorious is a unique blend of travel and history, an epic, resonant work that brings one of the world's great metropolises to life in all its dusty, chaotic beauty.

Back Jacket

Al-Qahira: Her Arab conquerors called her "the Victorious", and over the course of her 5,000-year history Cairo has richly merited the name. The seat of pharaohs and sultans, the prize of conquerors from Alexander the Great to Saladin to Napoleon, Cairo has never ceased reinventing herself.

Max Rodenbeck, a noted journalist who has spent much of his life in Cairo, provides a dazzling cultural excavation of this most ancient and multifaceted of cities -- from its Pharaonic beginnings to its heyday as the most glittering metropolis of the Middle Ages, from its subjugation by the Turks and British to its emergence as the modern capital of Arab nationalism. Whether he is exploring a belly-dance theater or a medieval mosque, a hashish den or a dusty bazaar, Rodenbeck brings Cairo to life in all its chaotic beauty. A remarkable fusion of travel and history, Cairo: The City Victorious is an epic, resonant work.