By focusing on the Salesian mission in Egypt, this book adds an Italian dimension to the study of the Christian missionary phenomenon in the Near East and addresses a little-known educational sector, namely vocational education. Drawing on unpublished archives in several languages and oral interviews, the author examines a century of missionary presence, tracing the careers of several generations of students and showing how the mission's vocational schools encouraged the formation of small family businesses and trade communities up until the 1970s. Through an analysis of Salesian institutions in Alexandria, Cairo and the Suez Canal cities (Port Said, Suez et Ismailia), the book explores the development of technical and vocational education in colonial and independent Egypt, its economic and political dimensions, and the impetus it received during the Nasser years. Finally, the Salesian activity in Egypt is placed in a wider historical context: the history of migrations and Italy's colonial ambitions in the Mediterranean, the transnational history of Catholicism and the social history of education.



by annalaura Turiano