Book excerpt: Gender and the Making of Modern Medicine in Colonial Egypt investigates the use of medicine as a 'tool of Empire' to serve the state building processes in Egypt by the British colonial administration, which effectively transformed Egyptian medical practice and medical knowledge in ways that were decidedly gendered.The book shows how the introduction of colonial medical practices ultimately gendered Egyptian medicine in ways that privileged Egyptian men and masculinity, whilst relegating Egyptian women to maternal roles in the domicile. Thus, by interrogating how colonial medicinal was constituted, the book reveals how the rise of the modern state determined the social formation of native elites in ways directly tied to the formation of modern gender identities, and gender inequalities, in colonial Egypt.