Book excerpt: ""A new e-book edition of the classic study of the radical changes in lifestyle, trade, agriculture, and land use that have taken place on Egypt's northwest coast in the face of a huge influx of Nile Valley settlers and touristsThe arid regions impose strict limits upon human existence and activity. And yet by respecting those limits, the flourishing and stable culture of these regions has for centuries been sustained. In the late twentieth century, however, forces such as modernization, globalization, and the politics and economics of nations became so great that major changes in the old ways.