«APERIRE TERRAM GENTIBUS»: ИНДУСТРИАЛИЗМ И ИДЕЯ СОЗДАНИЯ СУЭЦКОГО КАНАЛА
“APERIRE TERRAM GENTIBUS”: INDUSTRIALISM AND THE IDEA OF CREATING THE SUEZ CANAL

Summary/Abstract: The article analyzes the preparation for the construction of the Suez Canal. The purpose of the research is to study this idea as thefirst in the history of the enterprise, originally planned with foreign capital participation. Ferdinand de Lesseps was the main figurein it. The study of this issue will significantly expand the understanding of the world economic system formation in the XIX centuryand the inclusion of the Ottoman East into it. The historical background described in the memoirs of contemporaries and above allin Lesseps’s own correspondence makes it possible to understand the attitude to the Suez Canal in the highest political circles ofFrance, Great Britain, and the Ottoman Empire. The study found that the Suez Canal completely changed the balance of power inthe region, as well as the geopolitical structure of Egypt and the entire Middle East. The analysis of the sources revealed that theidea of building the canal was implemented within the framework of the philosophical concept of “industrialism”, which emergedfrom “Saint-Simonianism” in the 1830s. Saint-Simonian ideas in economics, in their liberal version, were accepted by Napoleon IIIthrough his close adviser Michel Chevalier, and Lesseps, being one of the representatives of “industrialism”, was the first to put theseideas into practice in such a large-scale format.

• Details
• Contents