It is the point faible of historians that we view events in the light of hindsight, and then pretend to write history wie es eigentlich gewesen. Wallerstein has pointed out that all historians write from a contemporary point of view. They write as a result of their interests, and from the angle of their current scholarly perceptions, so that there is no absolute objectivity, only a relative one. Nevertheless, a historian must examine his or her period of historical interest and compare it with the preceding and the succeeding eras in order to determine what changes ensued and the consequences of such changes to the country and to its population.

It has been alleged by some historians that industrialization in Egypt was doomed to failure because the country had little fuel and less mineral resources. Others have pointed out the lack of an internal market as a reason for the ultimate failure of industry. To my mind these are not valid arguments. England had no indigenous cotton and yet built up her industrial revolution on that one commodity. Japan has no fuel yet today she is an industrial giant. Such arguments then do not convince one of the ‘inevitable failure’ of industrialization, the more so in a country where manpower was plentiful and cheap and where the basic raw materials were grown.