Originating from a conference bearing the same name as the volume, these nine papers were originally presented at California State University, Los Angeles in 1990. They address the rather specific question of the Arabic manuscript resources available in the eighteenth century to document the history of Egypt during the Ottoman Period. Based on the premise that Abd al-Rahman ibn Hasan al-Jabarti’s work had been unduly monolithic in the field, the conference participants addressed the other manuscript sources that were available to compose such a history. For researchers into the Ottoman Period of Egyptian history, this study will prove an invaluable tool.