Translated to Arabic, «Ils ont fait l'Egypte moderne» by French journalist of Egyptian origin, Robert Solé. Egypt cannot be reduced to a brilliant ancient civilization whose vestiges we tirelessly admire. It is also the largest country in the Arab world, a young, dynamic and surprising country, which was in 2011, with its emblematic Tahrir Square, at the heart of an abortive «Spring».

After undergoing several foreign occupations, the land of the pharaohs had somehow fallen asleep. It was brutally confronted with modernity in 1798, when Bonaparte landed there with his soldiers, scholars and artists. From then on, national sentiment continued to assert itself. This awakening and the many upheavals that resulted from it are analyzed here through twenty leading actors: political leaders, such as Mehemet Ali, Nasser or Sadat; intellectuals attracted by the Enlightenment, like Tahtawi or Taha Hussein; traditional Muslim thinkers like Mohamed Abdou or Hassan al-Banna; innovative writers and artists, such as Naguib Mahfouz and Oum Kalsoum; or Hoda Chaarawi, the pioneer of feminism in the Arab world.

With his usual style, both fluid and hard-hitting, Robert Solé analyzes the legacy of these personalities in twenty chiseled portraits that recount the great hours of a pivotal country and more than ever essential in the Middle East.