In 1952, a military coup installed a group of junior army officers in power—known as the Free Officers and among them Gamal Abdel Nasser—and drove into exile the pro-British monarch King Farouk. Nasser's ascendance rode the wave of popular nationalism surging across the region in order to project a vision of pan-Arab unity and resistance to Western powers. This project inspired millions and made Egypt the leader of the section of the Arab world looking for independence from either the United States or the Soviet Union. In power, Nasser constructed a brutally repressive state capitalist regime that nationalised large swathes of the economy in order to rapidly industrialise the Egyptian economy. This session will examine the contradictory role played by Nasser and Arab nationalism and the influence it still exercises over Egypt and the broader region today.