I'm in the final semester of a history major. But that's not how I know about most things. I just have an intellectual curiosity. I learn about things just for the sake of it, because accumulating knowledge is just my fundamental drive in life. Some men are driven by accumulating money or power or women or whatever else; I'm driven by learning.
A quick overview of Egyptian history, with the disclaimer that I'm barely interested in ancient Egypt and wouldn't consider myself an expert:
Around 1200-900 BCE the eastern Mediterranean world was thrown into a crisis of huge proportions. This period is referred to by historians as the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Egypt was severely affected by this crisis and I believe this is where it became permanently weakened as a military force, never to recover from this crisis.
I don't know what happened for the 400 years after the subsiding of the crisis, but I'm just going to assume that Egypt was finished as a great power - like I said, I neither know nor care enough about Egyptian history to fact check in depth. Anyway, in 525BCE Egypt is defeated and a foreign power takes over the Pharoahship: the Achaemenids from Persia, the greatest empire the world had ever seen at the time. Egypt didn't stand a chance. It effectively became a province of the Achaemenid empire.
The Achaemenids as I said were by far the most advanced civilization in the world at this time. That meant they had the power to transform Egypt. They did so by building a canal at Suez - a forerunner to the modern day Suez Canal - providing a sea link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Ships could pass through the canal, cross the Red Sea, enter the Indian Ocean and reach Persia by going around the Arabian peninsula. This was a much more efficient route for transporting people, goods, and resources than marching overland across the inhospitable Arabian deserts. The canal had two main consequences. One, it made Egypt fabulously wealthy as it was now the middleman between India and Europe, controlling that extremely lucrative trade route. Traders from India would sell their products at Axum in Ethiopia, then they would be sent up the Red Sea to Egypt, and from there, onwards into the Mediterranean world. Likewise, trade going towards India from the Mediterranean world had to pass through Egypt.
The second consequence was a brain drain to Persia. The Achaemenids hired the best Egyptian people - architects, engineers, sculptors, artists, carpenters, masons, and other such skilled labourers - to work on public works projects elsewhere in the empire. Obviously this was quite harmful to Egypt and contributed to the weakening of the culture. A weak military and weak culture combined with an extremely rich economy and a very important strategic position is a very tempting prize for any imperial power. So it was with Egypt.
After a couple of hundred years of Achaemenid rule, during which Egypt steadily became weaker and weaker - the rot that set in during the Late Bronze Age Collapse couldn't be stopped - Alexander showed up and crushed the buildings; in 332BCE, Egypt changed hands from the Achaemenids to the Macedons. This was the first time white people ruled Egypt, and the country had already been a shadow of itself for 900 years before they showed up. Alexander died in 323BCE without leaving a successor, which threw his entire empire into chaos. Everybody wanted a piece. After 20 years of civil war, finally, a guy called Ptolemy took control of the Egyptian province of the former empire of Alexander. Ptolemy was one of Alexander's most trusted and valued generals and friends. He was one of seven men who were personal bodyguards to Alexander. So he definitely had the stripes to roll into Egypt and win the civil war over there.
The subsequent Ptolemaic dynasty ruled until 30BCE when the Romans absorbed Egypt. During this time Egyptian culture was further destroyed and replaced with Hellenistic culture. Although they managed some fantastic achievements like building the lighthouse at Alexandria and the great library at Alexandria, they obviously had nothing to do with what Egypt is really famous for. They had nothing to do with the powerful Egypt which had an empire of its own, which built the pyramids. shyt, cac Egypt is so boring that in mass media and popular culture, when you look at a movie like The Mummy or play a game like Rome Total War, you get huge historical inaccuracy and anachronisms - light skinned, Greek looking Egyptians practicing the ancient Egyptian culture from before 1200BCE; are shown as coexisting with Roman legions and Alexander's conquests. Egypt stopped being great nearly a thousand years before white people came to rule it. They cannot lay claim to its ancient accomplishments.
Qadafi talked too much. Not real Arabs.
class starts next week, I'm so excited for it 
