Seminar: Behind the Suez Canal: Colonial Geopolitics and Anglo-French Rivalry, 1859-1869

Speaker: Dr. James R. Fichter

Date: February 12, 2014
Time: 5:00-6:15 pm
Venue: Room 4.36, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus HKU.

Bio: James R. Fichter is associate professor of European Studies at Hong Kong University. He is currently working on his second book, Suez Passage to India: Anglo-French Rivalry and the Great Game at Sea, 1798-1885.

Abstract: This talk considers the geopolitical context of the construction of the Suez Canal in the 1860s, including Anglo-French rivalry in Egypt and the strategic needs of both states to send soldiers to their colonies in Asia. In doing so it deconstructs the idea that the canal was “French” and the idea that the opening of the canal in 1869 was a revolutionary departure—as has often been assumed -rather than an evolutionary step between previous and later developments in opening a Suez passage to India.