Saad Zaghloul Youfawed AlIsti’mar (Saad Zaghloul Negotiates the Coloniser), by: Tariq El-Bishri, Cairo: Shorouk Publishing House. 2012. 215pp.

A new book by the renowned retired Judge Tariq El-Bishri has just been released by Shorouk publishing house titled Saad Zaghloul Negotiates the Coloniser: A Study of the Egyptian-British Negotiations 1920 – 1924.

The book sheds light on the four crucial years of the independence negotiations led by Egyptian revolutionary, Saad Zaghloul, after the 1919 revolution. El-Bishri employs a non-traditional methodology to describe the roots and circumstances that led to the negotiations.

El-Bishri went through many resources, such as: the British Archives, reports, periodicals and contemporary books by historians, to compile what British and Egyptian historians wrote about Zaghloul.

Saad Zaghloul’s personality was put under the microscope in this book. El-Bishri was curious to see how Zaghloul's formation in the school of law refined his abilities to negotiate and manoeuvre British intransigence. That formation also bore in him the deep-seated refusal to break Egypt up as a concession for independence from Britain.

Saad Zaghloul (1859 – 1927) led the 1919 revolution against British occupation. The Egyptian was appointed prime minister (Jan 1924 - Nov 1924). He was also the founder of the famous Egyptian political party Wafd (The Delegation).

Tariq El-Bishri, retired judge and thinker, has many contributions in the history field. He held the chair of the Deputy Chief of State Council, a high Egyptian judicial association, and was also appointed by Egypt’s ruling military council as a head of the controversial committee of the constitutional amendments after the January 25 Revolution.