Business history may be defined as a nexus of variably incorporated social sciences bound by demonstrable behavior of economic actors in history. It is the docility of the field of business history, and the variability of the material presented under its auspices, that enabled EBHRC to proceed with the task of chronicling 20th century political economy of Egypt through the history of enterprise and governance in a way that best suited the prevailing conditions. In this way business history released the center from the ivory tower to which many historians remain confined. Ground level turned out to be a fine place to start. Hence, the method of oral history.

Egypt remains without a tradition of free access to document. Oral accounts are not without their objective advantages over written documents, but this a case where talking to the decision-makers, administrators and entrepreneurs was less a matter of preference than an imposition by circumstance. The narratives of Egypt’s industrial and entrepreneurial experience are absent from the written records. Those interviewees are therefore the guardians of a history that has never been made available to scholars, let alone the public. Specialized as they often are, many remain innocent of the historical value of their experiences. A coherent synthesis of the testimony of officials, bureaucrats, administrators and businessmen is a prism through which an historical perspective will almost certainly be entirely original.

Mustafa Hefny, “Graveyards and Digital Recordings: The Apparatus of Economic and Business History Research Center”. The Chronicles 1(3): 2006.