Too often scholars of nationalism and imperialism collapse the historical complexities into overly simplistic theoretical binary relationships such as colonizer/colonized. This particular moment in 1840 shows Egypt standing at empire’s edge, where meanings of empire were no longer being formed in the Ottoman model, but along a new European pattern. In the Egyptian case, the word imperialism fits this temporal limbo; this imperialism was embarked upon in the name of a future state. Selim Qapudan’s expedition fit into this desired legacy, a projection of Egypt into the future, the making of a nation whose geographic and cultural shape would emerge from its imperial extensions.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 213