Description
As the twentieth century roared on, transformative technologies--from trains, trams, and automobiles to radios and loudspeakers--fundamentally changed the sounds of the Egyptian streets. The cacophony of everyday life grew louder, and the Egyptian press featured editorials calling for the regulation of not only mechanized and amplified sounds, but also the voices of street vendors, the music of wedding processions, and even the traditional funerary wails. Ziad Fahmy offers the first historical examination of the changing soundscapes of urban Egypt, highlighting the mundane sounds of street life, while "listening" to the voices of ordinary people as they struggle with state authorities for ownership of the streets.
Interweaving infrastructural, cultural, and social history, Fahmy analyzes the sounds of modernity, using sounded sources as an analytical tool for examining the past. Street Sounds also reveals a political dimension of noise by demonstrating how the growing middle classes used sound to distinguish themselves from the Egyptian masses. This book contextualizes sound, layering historical analysis with a sensory dimension, bringing us closer to the Egyptian streets as lived and embodied by everyday people.
Author: Ziad Fahmy
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 08/25/2020
Pages: 312
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.80h x 6.00w x 0.80d
ISBN13: 9781503613034
ISBN10: 1503613038
BISAC Categories:
- History | Middle East | Egypt (see also Ancient | Egypt)
- History | Modern | 20th Century | General
- Social Science | Media Studies
About the Author
Ziad Fahmy is Associate Professor of Modern Middle East History at Cornell University. He is the author of Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern National through Popular Culture (Stanford, 2011).