How Napoleon’s Egypt campaign sparked a printing revolution in the

How Napoleon’s Egypt campaign sparked a printing revolution in the

LONDON: On Sunday, July 1, 1798, a vast fleet of ships appeared off the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Aboard the flagship Orient was the French general Napoleon Bonaparte, still six years away from being proclaimed emperor of France but fresh from a series of military victories in Europe and determined to undermine Britain’s influence in Egypt and the Middle East.

How Napoleon’s Egypt campaign sparked a printing revolution in the Arab world

Previous Special 1 / 2 A view of the Bulaq Printing Press in Cairo, which is celebrated by Egypt’s state library, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, as “the main force" in the "historical transformation that transferred Egypt from the Dark Ages of ignorance and backwardness and into the age of knowledge, freedom and awareness.” (Photo courtesy of Bibliotheca…