This book is a collection of edited papers presented at an International Workshop held at Tel Aviv University and the Open University of Israel in May 2006, entitled ‘Narrating the Nile: Cultures, Identities, Memories’ and devoted to the life work of Professor Haggai Erlich on the occasion of his retirement from Tel Aviv University and to his outstanding contribution to the corpus of research in Middle Eastern and African studies. The chapters' authors and the editors alike seek to encourage the study of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia not only as autonomous entities but also as part of the Nile region, a shared theater of experiences, national identities, and collective memories. Historically, they base their studies on the features of Professor Erlich's works that deal with Ethiopia as closely integrated in the strategies of the Nile basin and the Red Sea, and how through them it was linked to the Mediterranean world, influencing important developments that took place in the three regions. In this sense, Ethiopia and its sister countries of the Nile Valley, Egypt and Sudan, were placed in the Braudelian concept of historic time, ‘in which nature serves as a powerful agent of history, nurturing a rich variety of lifestyles, patterns of migration and integration, modes of economies, and the spread of cultures and religions’. Accordingly, the book is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on conflict, coexistence, and cultural interaction that took place in the Nile basin from the period of the Mamluk Sultanate up to the Urabist revolt in 1881. It reveals that, although Muslim–Christian rivalry was an important component of bilateral relations between the Mamluk Sultanate and the Ethiopian Empire, it nevertheless left room for diplomatic communication and social interaction. Issues related to conflict and socio-cultural interaction are thoroughly discussed in the chapters of Michael Winter, Steven Kaplan, and Meir Hatina.

The second part deals with the ‘Unity of the Nile Valley’ as a conceptual pillar of modern Egyptian nationalism and a bone of contention with British occupiers in the interwar era. In Chapter 5, Rami Ginat emphasizes that there was a consensus among Egyptian nationalists of various schools regarding the unity of the Nile Valley and the integrity of Egypt and Sudan. In contrast, he also discusses the divergent stand of the Egyptian Communists who called for a common struggle with the Sudanese people and their right to self-determination. In Chapter 6, John Voll examines the issue of the Sudan within a broad international context of US foreign policy in the region, 1945–52, and analyzes the United States' support for the unity of the Nile Valley in line with its strategic interests in the Middle East.

The two visions – the Unity of the Nile Valley and pan-Arabism – form the third part of this volume, where the contributors discuss the first under the Wafdist and non-Wafdist governments and the second under the Nasserist regime. In chapter 7, Orit Bashkin examines the experience of Egyptian intellectuals in Iraq during the interwar period, and discusses how they encountered the features of common Arab heritage and recognized the similarity between the formative influence of the Nile River for Egyptian culture and that of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. As Bashkin argues, the aspects of similarity in the context of shared history do not prevent the Egyptian intellectuals in Iraq from imagining themselves as primarily belonging to the Nile-centered community. In Baskhin's evocative words: ‘although present in the capital of the Abbasids, they searched for the voice of Umm Kulthum’. The voice of Umm Kulthum is the theme of Chapter 9, where Heather Sharkey discusses the clash of Christianities over the decision of the American University in Cairo to rent its auditorium to the Egyptian Broadcasting Service for the monthly performance of Umm Kulthum in 1938. She also addresses the issue of the Nile as the site of self-identity for the Egyptian Christian Copts, who detached themselves from the outside patronage of the United Presbyterian Church of North America in the late 1930s and 1940s and highlighted their indigenous Egyptian character.

The final part highlights diplomatic relations between three major countries of the Nile basin, Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, in terms of their struggle for the distribution of Nile water and of the settlement of disputed territories. In Chapter 10 and 11, Robert Collins and David Shinn analyze the bilateral history of the region to reveal periodic conflicts alongside peaceful economic cooperation, with special reference to Nile water, oil, and trade, and closer political ties among the key countries of the Nile basin.

Narrating the Nile, as its editors argue, does not claim that it will be ‘the final word’ or offer ‘any sense of closure on persistent issues concerning the Nile Valley’ and the history of its sociocultural and political discourse. Rather, it highlights the role that the Nile has played in shaping conflict, coexistence, and sociocultural relations in the region from the late Middle Ages to contemporary times, and suggests new interdisciplinary approaches and reappraisals on specific Nile-basin areas and case studies in particular times and places.