Bankers-turned-historians are not a common sight in our field, and EzzelArab brings his expertise to where it is needed most. His book rightly argues for the significance of financial constraints and economic competition in the development of early nationalism as a reaction to foreign interference in Egyptian affairs before the Urabi revolt. The author predates the notion of economic nationalism, defined as the struggle over the domination of state finances and the economy, to this period rather than to its common association with the establishment of Bank Misr in the early 1920s. Although the term “traditional elites” is somewhat misleading (see later), the book demonstrates that economic nationalism was developed as a response of local power groups to external threats to their interests.