Well for my area of study, the Middle East, this is certainly the case. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 (and the subsequent filling of the power vacuum the French left in 1801 by Muhammad Ali Pasha) is the traditional point at which historians mark the start of the "modern" Middle East.

While there is of course push back against this notion on the basis of overall societal forces and trends that point to continuity in the region prior to 1798, not to mention various indications that the kind of imperialism that the region experienced thereafter seem somewhat inevitable, it's still a major event that in and of itself was by no means inevitable (and indeed still seems quite exceptional!).

That Napoleon's mission to Egypt also was in some ways explicitly "modernizing" has added to this. Napoleon brought the first Arabic printing press to Egypt (albeit one in which his declarations were translated in horrible grammar, undermining the French position with Egypt's scholarly notables), he took a team of 150 someodd scientists, artists and civilian intellectuals to demonstrate European science to the Egyptians as well as to study Egypt itself. As a result Egypt saw it's first demonstration of a hot-air-balloon flight (which amusingly crashed, which the local crowd apparently enjoyed greatly as it embarrassed the French), and Napoleon's expedition discovered the Rosetta Stone, which aside from its historic importance in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics ultimately contributed to "Egyptomania" that spread throughout the Western world. Three years of occupation and exchange between the 30,000 some-odd French soldiers and the local populace likewise contributed to a European-wide fascination with the Middle East and Islam, arguably marking the birth of serious western "Orientalism" with all of the good and bad connotations that entails.

What's more, and here I want to be careful because it can be misread, Napoleon's methods and strategy convinced both the Ottoman empire generally and more specifically the future ruler of Egypt Muhammad Ali Pasha that they desperately needed to modernize. I say it's necessary to be careful because despite lengthy descriptions by all sorts of writers that the Ottomans were in "decline" or were "backwards" or that French or Western technology and culture was somehow massively advanced in comparison with the Ottoman territories, I'm not convinced that French advances were any more shocking to the Ottomans than they were to all the European countries that likewise had to play catch-up in the age of the levee en-masse and nationalist republican fervor. I've seen writers suggest that the Ottoman Empire was in "decline" from even the 18th century, which seems astonishing given that it managed to outlast its supposedly "healthy" European rival empires of Russia and Austria-Hungary. Anyways that's a bit of a digression, but the point stands that their encounter with Napoleon convinced both the Ottomans and Egypt under Muhammad Ali that massive military/political/economic reforms were necessary. This began the "tanzimat" reform era with its nizam-e-cedid "new order" Ottoman infantry. These efforts were far more successful under Egypt's Muhammad Ali, as Muhammad Ali understood that the French model relied on a total reinvention of the state system, not just technological or tactical updates to the military. This he accomplished by massive land reforms and cautiously successful efforts to begin industrialization. The result was that he was eventually able to field large armies and fleets that could easily defeat his former Ottoman overlords and went toe to toe (albeit with disastrous results given the odds against him) with European powers as in the Egyptian expedition to Greece during the Greek war of Independence and the two Egyptian-Ottoman wars where the British forced a peace treaty upon him.

His descendants, unfortunately, were less cautious and his grandson Ismail, in a rush to build the Suez Canal and have Egypt recognized, in his words, as a European rather than an African country, resulted in Egypt's eventual bankruptcy and total military occupation by the British in 1882.

Source wise: there are probably too many books marking the invasion of Napoleon/the Rise of Muhammad Ali Pasha (or with a few years of contextual leeway ahead of time) as the start of "modern" history in Egypt to list. A sample would include:

The Making of the Modern Near East: 1792-1923 by Malcolm Yapp The History of Modern Egypt: From Muhammad Ali to Mubarak by P.J. Vatikiotis All the Pasha's Men: Mehmed Ali, his army, and the making of modern Egypt by Khaled Fahmi

Some of the dissenters might include Lord Cromer who, unsurprisingly, marked the start of his own history Modern Egypt with the build up to foreign financial administration of Egypt culminating in British occupation. I don't know if it's as specific to the Middle East but you can of course find innumerable authors who dispute the notion of "modernity" as it applied to colonized peoples, much of which I agree with in a technical sense, even if I think it's a useful adjective in the Middle East context.

In any event I think you can see the trend. The best contemporary account by an Egyptian of the occupation is the chronicle of al-Jabarti, who was an Azhar educated scholar and erstwhile minister. He made three versions of the account, a translation of the first account covering the first six months of Egypt's occupation has been published in English under the title Napoleon in Egypt: Al-Jabarti's Chronicle of the French Occupation, 1798.

Finally, the book I always recommend as a single volume overview of "modern" Middle East history, though he starts his account earlier, is Eugene Rogan's excellent, sweeping work The Arabs: A History, which is particularly good for using so many Arabic/Turkish language sources.

edit: Ismail Pasha, not his father Ibrahim Pasha, presided over Egypt's near bankruptcy and occupation, doh!