Anouar Abdel-Malek, 1924-2012

I missed it as it was overshadowed by so much else Egyptian news, but the exiled leftist Egyptian political thinker and sociologist Anouar Abdel-Malek died late last week at the age of 88, in Paris.

A pan-Arabist Arab nationalist, and a Marxist critical of the Egyptian Communist Party, he fled Nasser's Egypt when Nasser, whom he initially admired, cracked down on leftists, and spent most of his subsequent life in Paris. He is probably best known in the English-speaking world for his 1968 book (1962 in French) Egypt: Military Society: The Army Regime, the Left, and Social Change. Much of his work appeared in French; some see his 1963 article "L'orientalism en crise" as anticipating the critique of Edward Said.

Much of his work was highly intellectual; he was a leftist social critic of the West.

An appreciation by Hamza Qinawy is here.