Moreover, the main criticism that this book has leveled against the nationalist version of Egyptian history is its assumption that "Egypt" has always had a unified, self-contained, clearly recognizable identity, and that its inhabitants have always realized – through their strong attachment to its soil, and through their conscious links to its history that they are, and have always been, clearly and exclusively "Egyptians." In other words, the main problem of Egyptian nationalist historiography, like all nationalist historiographies, is the assumption that Egypt is an undivided subject and that the Egyptian nation is a primordial, eternal entity possessing a unified, conscious will potentially capable of autonomy and sovereignty. Studying the army of Egypt in the first half of the nineteenth century, an army that is supposed to have been the national institution par excellence, this book found no evidence that this central institution functioned along national lines.

XREF: Builds on the book's running critique of nationalist historiography (loc 103, 1095) and the claim that the army did not function along national lines (loc 93, 1670). Builds on: "Nationalist historians overstate soldiers' willingness to die for "Egypt.""

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1691