The Lion and the Sphinx: The Rise and Fall of the British in Egypt 1882-1956

Henry Keown-Boyd

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841040614 ISBN 13: 9781841040615

Publisher: Memoir Club, 2002

"Dealing with Egypt has never been easy and this book, written with much inside knowledge, is a valuable contribution to the history of Britain’s diplomacy at work in one of the most challenging parts of the world, which many of us came to know so well during the Suez crisis or on National Service in the Canal Zone. Henry, however, goes further back to produce a dramatic and well documented picture of life in that turbulent country from 1882-1956."

Leo Cooper
The British Occupation of Egypt, which began when General Wolseley defeated the rebellious Egyptian Army under the patriot Orabi Pasha at the battle of Tel el Kebir in 1882, finally ended with the Suez fiasco of 1956.
During this time, Great Britain exercised a unique influence over Egypt amounting, for much of this period, to indirect rule. Two of Britain’s pro-consuls, Cromer and Lloyd, have left clear, self confident, even self-satisfied, justifications of their stewardships, emphasising British achievement. However, the Egyptian nationalist view, not surprisingly, is a very different one.
In this book the author tries to strike a balance between these points of view, often by the use of anecdote and personal experience. Thus he attempts to re-visit the Egypt of their day, evoking a way of life, pleasurable even luxurious but sometimes tinged with danger, which has passed away as though it had never been.

Review:

'your reviewer is charmed by the author's erudition and happy style' -- World War II Experience Centre

About the Author:

Henry Keown-Boyd, the youngest son of a senior British official of the Egyptian Government, the late Sir Alexander Keown-Boyd, was born in 1932 and spent his early childhood in Egypt.

Educated at Eton, he joined the army in 1951 and served with the 11th Hussars in Germany and Malaya.

In 1956 he returned to live and work in Egypt, but following the Suez invasion of that same year was expelled, together with most other British subjects.

There followed a business career during which he lived in both Ethiopia and the Sudan (where his father had been a member of the Political Service in the early years of this century) and travelled widely throughout the world.

Married with one daughter, he lives in Herefordshire and is also the author of several other books including: A Good Dusting; The Sudan Campaigns 1883-99: The Fists of Righteous Harmony; The Boxer Uprising in China, 1900: Remember with Advantages; A History of the 10th, 11th and Royal Hussars, 1945-92: Soldiers of the Nile; A Biographical history of the British Officers of the Egyptian Army, 1882-1925.