Roger Owen is the A.J. Meyer Professor of Middle East History at Harvard University. His books include Cotton and the Egyptian Economy, 1820-1914 (1969), The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800-1914 (1981), State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East (1992), Lord Cromer: Victorian Imperialist, Edwardian Proconsul (2004) and, with Sevket Pamuk, A History of the Middle East Economies in the Twentieth Century (1999).