‘A Trade in Dreams’ archives the invisible history of Egyptian advertising

Egyptians have long been storytellers, and storytellers have long found great success in the advertising industry. In A Trade in Dreams: A Century of Egyptian Print Advertising, AUC Professor of Design and author of A History of Arab Graphic Design Bahia Shehab (LinkedIn) takes on the Herculean feat of tracing and archiving the history of print advertising in Egypt from the tail end of the 18th century all the way to the mid-20th century, expertly showcasing how politics, colonialism, and society can shape the stories a country and its advertisements can tell.

What to expect: Shehab works chronologically, starting with Napoleon Bonaparte, whose 1798 proclamation to the Egyptian people was the first mass message from the West aimed at an Egyptian audience. Until then, messages had been passed on orally; a conqueror’s PR campaign changed that. From there, she follows the rise of print in Om El Donia — the first newspapers and how the medium evolved. The book covers the earliest advertising, when Western ideas met local consumption, the rise of celebrity endorsement under the monarchy, and what she calls the golden era of Egyptian advertising in the ’40s. The shifts in the ads tracked the shifts in Egyptian society itself.

What we liked: The book is the product of years of painstaking research into an industry Shehab calls “invisible in global scholarly circles,” and it shows. It’s rich with specifics: the first recorded ad published in Egypt, the stories behind the papers still in circulation today, and how the political movements that shaped modern Egypt shaped its consumers too. It’s also a history of Egypt itself and a reminder of how closely the country’s media tracks its daily life.

The verdict: Filled with scores of illustrations, archival material, and newspaper clippings alongside its rich academic text, A Trade in Dreams offers a multisensory reading experience that incites further reading until all 250 pages of it are turned. For professionals in the media and advertising industries, this is a must-read; for everyone interested in Egyptian history, the same proves just as true.

WHERE TO GET IT- A Trade in Dreams is available in paperback at AUC Bookstores and Diwan. You can also get the e-book through Amazon.