Thursday, September 15, 2022
12 p.m. – 1 p.m.
McKinney Conference Room, 111 Thayer Street
In the summer of 1787, a merchant's supply of gunpowder ignited, rippling an explosion through Cairo's central commercial district. As flames shot out from this store, buildings toppled and city blocks were destroyed. The aftermath revealed dozens of dead. This paper examines the structural conditions that made this disaster and what the responses to it reveal about the state of politics, the economy, and environmental consciousness in Egypt at the end of the eighteenth century.