Professor Smith uses the tools of anthropology to examine the ancient Egyptian construction of ethnic identities with its stark contrast between civilized Egyptians and barbaric foreigners - those who made up the 'Wretched Kush' of the title

Chapter 1 Boundries and Ethnicity, Chapter 2 Ethnicity in Antiquity: Ethnicity: Essential or Situational?, Bourdieu's Habitus and Ethnic Identity, Otherness and Ethnicity in Ancient Egypt, Chapter 3 Ethnicity and Archaeology: Finding Ethnicity in the Archaeological Record, Foodways and Ethnic Identity, Death and Ethnic Identity, Askut and Tombos, Chapter 4 Egypt and Nubia: Imperial Strategies and Native Agency, Bronze Age Center-Periphery Dynamics, Nubia in the Second Millenium B.C, Chapter 5 Life in Askut: Architecture, Material Culture, Ritual Contexts, Chapter 6 Death at Tombos: Architecture, Grave Goods, Ritual Practice, Chapter 7 Ideology and the Pharaohs: History or Propaganda?, Ethnic Stereotypes and Legitimization, Wretched Kush: Transmission of Ethnic Stereotypes, Chapter 8 Ethnicity, Agency and Empire: Women & Foodways at Askut, Monumentality and Display at Tombos, Was Kush 'Wretched'?