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Abdulla Difalla A Report of the book “Colonizing Egypt” by Timothy Mitchell, Preface and Chapter 2 In the preface of the book, “Colonizing Egypt,” which was written by a European born professor named Timothy Mitchell an overall idea of what is to be expected on the six (6) chapters of the book was discussed. The preface made the point that Europe’s colonization of Egypt has done numerous improvements in Egypt. Some of these good improvements are: that the people of Egypt learned better hygiene; they were given education, which made the people more ambitious and as a result being easily governed by the political power. Also, increasing the average agricultural production of the many villages. The introduction also explained that European or western power was able to colonize Egypt for a very long time due to the invention of the strategy called Panopticon, which is basically the coercion and commands style of invasion and control of colonized nations by partitioning of space, and isolation of individuals. In Chapter 2, which has a subtitle, “Enframing” he shows the strategies used by European power to further strengthen its colonization of Egypt. The chapter was divided into eight sub-chapters. The first of these sub chapters was “An Artificial Machine,” wherein Mitchell explained the enforcing power of the European powers on its colonies. In other words, the tactics of its military branch. Basically the sub chapter’s view point is that discipline and order made the entire military a powerful force in gaining control of vast territories. On the next sub-chapter, “The whole surface of society” Mitchell expand how the same order and discipline in the military ranks was imposed upon the entire society through the use of military
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schools and strict monitoring and espionage. In the third sub-chapter, “Model Housing,” the restructuring of village by replacing old houses into new once and putting people them based on the family’s size was explained. This restructuring of village not only put the villagers into a new environment, which made them easier to control, but also paved way to the introduction of a new cultures – the European culture. The fourth is “The filling of the house,” which discusses how infrastructures were carefully arranged the order to increase the efficiency of governing. Accordingly, the way the infrastructures where created resembles that of house that encloses every colonized person into one area. The next sub-chapter is “The outside” which discussed the importance of setting up unambiguous border lines among the ruled people, spatially. The seventh is “The Vie Interieure,” talks about how the physical divisions were supported by the distinct institutions inside and outside of each enclosure village. Finally, the 8th sub-chapter, the transcendental presupposition,” talks about the positioning of observers within enclosures so that they could recognize order.