Galal Ahmad Amin (1935 – 25 September 2018) was an Egyptian economist and commentator, professor of economics at the American University in Cairo. He was critical of the economic and cultural dependency of Egypt upon the West.
Amin received an LLB from the Faculty of Law, Cairo University in 1955, and an MSc and PhD from the London School of Economics in 1961 and 1964, respectively. Prior to joining AUC in 1979, he was a visiting professor of economics at Ain Shams University and the University of California, Los Angeles, and was economic adviser to the Kuwait Fund for Economic Development. Amin was awarded the Sultan Qaboos Awards for Culture, Arts and Literature in 2017, the State Appreciation Award in Social Sciences in 2013 and the Sultan Bin Al Owais Cultural Foundation Award in recognition of his contributions to economics, politics, community and culture in 2010. He was also the recipient of the Award for Economics from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science; the Order of Merit for the Sciences and Arts from the President of Egypt; and the Egyptian State Prize for Economics.
He is the author of many books in Arabic and English on the economic, social and political developments in Egypt and the Arab World, the best known of which are: Whatever Happened to the Egyptians (AUC Press, 2000) and Whatever Else Happened to the Egyptians (AUC Press, 2004)
Published Work:
Food supply and economic development; with special reference to Egypt, 1966
The modernization of poverty : a study in the political economy of growth in nine Arab countries 1945-1970, 1974
Egypt's economic predicament : a study in the interaction of external pressure, political folly, and social tension in Egypt, 1960-1990, 1995
'Whatever Happened to the Egyptians: changes in Egyptian society from 1950 to the present, AUC Press, 2000
Whatever Else Happened to the Egyptians: from the revolution to the age of globalization, AUC Press, 2004
The illusion of progress in the Arab world: a critique of Western misconstructions, 2005. Translated by David Wilmsen.
Illusion of Progress in the Arab World (Cairo, AUC Press, 2006)
The Philosophy of Economics (Cairo, Dar Al-Shorouq, 2008)
Globalization (Cairo, Dar Al-Shorouq, 2009)
Egypt in the Era of Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011), 2011
Whatever Happened to the Egyptian Revolution?, 2014. Translated by Jonathan Wright.
