The History of Extortion in Egypt

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, peasants in egypt were subject to very high levels of a taxation. The tax collectors would be going into the villages and armed with whipsand with rifles. Even if you are an ordinary soudonese peasant, again, what you're having imposed upon you is very high levels actually,. Taxation, labor service, military conscription - this was all for financial reasons. And central to the book really is this sense that this is a er a distopian situation that we have in the region in the late nineteenth century.