Egypt’s Desert Dreams

"David Sims ... provides us with a lucid account of the underlying reasons that led Egyptians to pursue a costly strategy of developing large parts of their desert. He explains why such an approach may not have been fully justified, and why it generally did not succeed. This important book is a must-read for planners and others interested in the development of Egypt. Policy makers would do well to listen to his advice." Nezar AlSayyad, University of California, Berkeley; "Sims' detailed critique of Egypt's desert development is revelatory, constituting an essential addition to the literature on both the politics of development and the politics of Egypt. It shows not just failures in Egypt's desert 'dreams, ' but more generally a distorted political economy that purposefully empowers elites and disempowers most Egyptians." Anthony Chase, Occidental College; "During the final decades of the twentieth century the Egyptian state embarked on a series of desert mega-projects... As David Sims shows in this important book, the wealth that was made from these schemes did not come from meeting the goals of development..., but from the land deals, contracting opportunities, and speculative profits enjoyed by the small group of well-connected entrepreneurs and regime insiders ... Egypt's Desert Dreams is the first book to provide a full-length account of this misappropriation and misuse of the country's collective resources. But the real value of the book is in connecting recent events with the longer history of desert development." from the Foreword by Timothy Mitchell; "Egypt's Desert Dreams is a rare piece of analysis in a "near void" of desert development literature." By Patrick Keddie, LA Review of Books;