Book review: The politics of art in modern Egypt: aesthetics, ideology and nation building

"The Politics of Art in Modern Egypt: Aesthetics, Ideology and Nation Building." Patrick Kane. I.B. Tauris. February 2013. --- Art and cultural production in Egypt during much of the last hundred years has operated against a backdrop of political crisis and confrontation. In this book Patrick Kane focuses on the turbulent changes of the 1920s to 1960s, when polemical discourse and artistic practice developed against the entrenched and co-opted conservatism of elite and state culture. Susheel Gokarakonda finds that this book is essential reading for students of Egyptian art and literature, modern history, and revolutionary movements in the Arab world.