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The noted critic and a Palestinian now teaching at Columbia University,examines the way in which the West observes the Arabs.

Customer Reviews:

• Deconstruction with a purpose
  Said's primary task consisted in locating a discourse on orientalism which is no mean feat. Having arrived at that underlying ideology, he proceeded to deconstruct, an even harder task especially for the marginalised Orient. The book screams Foucault adopting the same modal in demonstrating the relations of power that institutionalise knowledge and reproduce truths with the deliberate aim of controlling the "other". This work, moreover, is a poignant reminder that deconstruction is not an intellectual luxury, provided it does not divorce its aim from political effectiveness. Said revealed himself as the mouthpiece of the Orient at a time when globalisation threatens to sweep everything in its way. I am a keen believer in the need to reconcile humanism and postmodernism, a paradox, that Said deflty overcomes....more info
• The other side of anti-Semitism
  The phenomenon Edward Said describes in his book is the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim traditions in society and literature. "Orientalism" is a term that describes a "discourse", a school of thought. And like anti-Semtism, which was one part of Orientalist prejudice in the 19th century, the discourse of anti-Muslim anti-Arab prejudice has a long and powerful history. Regrettably it infects leading scholars of the Middle East like Bernard Lewis. Said deserves credit for putting it all together. Although he is a harsh critic of Western imperialism and Israeli and American power in the Middle East, he hardly manifests racism towards any group....more info
• Orientalism: the East created by a postmodern thinker
  The book of Edward Said is without any doubt on the most influential books produced in the late XX century, in the Western societies.There are several reasons that explain the popularity of the author and his book, some are good reasons, others not.

  The first reason of the popularity of Edward Said is the seminal work in the field of the so -called postcolonial and cultural studies. In his works the intellectual roots are the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School and the genealogies of Nietzsche/Foucault, a very fashionlable way to make an "original academic research" in the late XX century in US and Europe. The second reason is the wrong mental image in Western minds that Palestinian = Arab = Muslim = good knowledge of Middle East and Muslim World and an "authorithy" in the political and cultural problems of this very complex World region. The third reason is the political support of the palestinian side in US and the Western World.

  The book of Said raises, at least, three important questions: the firs one is how can Said be qualified like an humanist thinker, if his intelectual roots are clearly anti-humanist (v.g. Der Antichrist of Nietzsche and the distortion/manipulation of Nietzsche thought made by Foucault )?

  Furthermore, if Said is right when he says that are negative stereotypes deeply inside the Western "imperial literature" of the orientalists, who made misrepresentations of the Arabs and the Muslim World, why Said don't analyse too the imperial literature inside of the Muslim World and the representations of the Arabs in the Ottoman Empire? After all, the Ottoman imperial rule existed in Middle East and in Palestine for several centuries, until the end of World War I, in 1918, and the Palestinians and other Arab peoples where dominated by the Turks for a long time; the Western British imperial rule in Palestine existed only for 30 years; the French in Lebanon and Syria between the two World Wars ...

  And what happen to the deeply rooted negative stereotipes that exists in the Arab/Muslim World about the Jewish and the Oriental Christians, the oher so-called people of the book ( the "dhimmi" in the name coinned by the egyptian born Bat Ye'Or)? The question is: the "dhimmi" status under Muslim rule, with the humiliations of different clothing, the prohibition to ride noble animals like horses or camels, the prohibition on carrying or possesing weapons, the discriminatory taxation where all trade and transport taxes where generally doubled for "dhimmis", etc, was better and lesser opressive than colonial rule of the European Powers?

  Finally, another question. Edward Said is a Christian born bourgeois, who studied only in Western Schools, first in Lebanon and Egipt (the countries with the large Christian Communities in Middle East), later in US. Does he really knows the complexities of the Arab/Muslim World ? And, if the answer is affirmative, why the Arab sources and the Ottoman sources, are totally inexistent in his book? If the answer is that the inquire is about Western perceptions, why the works of German and Russian Orientalist are not used? Said says that the most influential works were written in English and French. Is this true or, as Bernard Lewis suggests, this is an usefull argument, when we have any knowlege of this languages?...more info

• Superb Polemic
  At first sight, arcane knowledge of the classical "Orient" and seemingly objective inquiry into cultures other than "ours" may not bear any great impact on politics or other more decisive facets of life. Said demonstrates, however, that knowledge does affect political power in extremely significant ways. He thoroughly documents how apparently "objective" scholars from Europe and later America formulated and taught academic dogmas about the "inferior East." These academic doctrines, in turn, acquired an aura of authority on the basis of their seemingly immense knowledge, and thus acquired the power to (mis)represent "the Orient" to the Occidental audience. Through various reductionist stereotypes, such Orientalist dogmas climbed their way into state-sponsored academic chairs and experts who, up to his very day, have the power to guide and direct national policies. Said's Orientalism is a forceful and cogent political argument against binary oppositions and harmful divisions which unfortunately still pervade much of "our" scholarship and politics....more info
• Orientalism is an inaugural book for postcolonial studies
  Although from the perspective of postcolonial and cultural studies in the late nineties Said's Orientalism may seem basic or unselfconscious, one must remember the importance of this book to a wide range of fields. Through his identification of the construction of the racist and imperialist discourses of academic Orientalism, Said forces those interested in literary and cultural studies to reflect upon their own status as intellectuals and their own complicity with Orientalism and, by extension, other exploitative modes of power. Said's book at least partially inaugurates contemporary debates about the literary canon, as well as really paving the road for a variety of approaches to postcolonial studies, including, most importantly, the work of Homi Bhabha....more info
• Orientalism & Third Worldism
  Whenever I listen to the 'mental slavery' line in Bob Marley's Redemption song, the cultural aspect of imperialism as exposed in 'Orientalism' is what first comes to mind.
  
  Fanon's 'Wretched of the Earth' was the ultimate testament of Third World armed liberation, but 'Orientalism' was Palestinian American Prof., Edward Said's first of many testaments of intellectual decolonization.
  Said, gives an insight of imperialism as portrayed in 18th and 19th century literature from England, France, and other European powers that had started to expand their domains through countries in the Islamic world, such as Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, which signaled the start of a period where the studies about the Orient gained center stage in literary and history realms. This expansion compelled a plethora of self-declared cultural experts, or 'orientalists,' to study the exotic lands that their empires were conquering. The orientalists, Said argues, would deliberately or unintentionally rationalize these conquests of foreign lands through their literary work by perpetuating the myth that the natives needed to be liberated and civilized by the well-intentioned European, who in times were portrayed as making this benevolent sacrifice for the good of the natives, even if it was by force.
  
  One thing is certain of any empire or great power in history: their massacres, genocides, ethnic cleansings, resource exploitation and war of conquests have all been done under a banner of benevolence, if not in the name of God. This is the conclusion Said arrives at attempts in his 400-page masterpiece, in which he goes into lenght to explain the cultural fraud that was, and still is, often cited by World powers to justify their most loathed policies in Third World countries. ...more info
• Masterful work!
  Masterful work by Dr. Said. This book was written twenty years ago, but the hypothesis remains relevant today. The book reveals an urgency to better understand the Arab/Muslim world for those in the West!...more info
• Hiding Arab Racism
  This book, like Culture and Imperialism, is essentially about Western prejudice against Islam. Said condemns intellectuals in the West who in his eyes are "agents of exploitation". Yet Said himself is an agent of racism: Arab Racism.
  
  A Pan Arabist, he always supported Arab unity and "Islam" at the expense of non-Arab and non-Moslem peoples. Said directs and manipulates the Western taste for self criticim, and all that does is deflect the world's attention from Arab and Moslem attrocities committed against Christians, Kurds, Jews, Israelis, Coptic Christians, non-Arab Sudanese, etc.
  
  Thus, reading Said, you would never realize that Sadam Hussein's poisoning of the Kurds has never been condemned by one Arab intellectual or leader. This is because a racist prevalent attitude in the Arab mind is that the entire Middle East should be Arab. This also explains the attitude towards Israel, a country that is predominantly non-Moslem and speaks a Middle Eastern language other than Arabic.
  
  The pity is that Said himself is a Christian, yet he never spoke on behalf of Coptic Christians in Egypt, or the right of Christians to practice their faith in Saudi Arabia and probably other places in the Arab World. He is facilitating the overall aim of PanArab Nationalists by distracting the West from what is happening in the Arab world.
  
  For a better understanding of relations between the West and Islam, I recommend books by Bernard Lewis, such as "The Moslem Discovery of Europe" and the "Jews of Islam". I also recommend books by the Egyptian scholar and Jewish refugee Yael Bat Yeor, such as "The Dhimmi". ...more info
• The eternal book
  This book has probably shaped the intellectual debate about the Middle East among interested Western experts as late Palestinian scholar Edward Said coined a new term for these non-Arab experts dealing with Arab issues: Orientalists.
  Said would stick to this theory throughout his consequent writings and as he used it often to undermine the credibility of some famous Western writers on Middle Eastern issues arguing that no experts could surpass the analytical ability of the natives who are clearly in a better positioned to study and analyze their own culture.
  The book that was published in 1978 was adopted in the curriculum of some universities in the Middle East while it provoked some Western thinkers who retaliated against Said by discrediting his professorship of Comparative English Literature. According to Said's opponents, if they were unable to understand the oriental culture which they did not belong to, then he could not lecture on English literature since he was an Arab.
  The debate over the concept of Orientalism survives Said and is - to this day - under debate....more info
• Great!
  A brilliant treatment of an important subject. Said discusses the representation of the Orient (the Near East) in Western scholarship and its relationship to colonialism....more info
• A Must Have for Cultural Anthropologists.
  Theory is usually incredibly dense and boring, but Said present his complex arguments in an interesting and relatively easy to understand format. I've checked this book out from the library so many times for so many papers I can't believe I just got around to buying my own copy. Honestly, I could not have gotten through graduate school without this book. Thank you Edward Said! ...more info
• Excellent
  It's an excellent book to read indeed. A new perspective different from those you hear every day in failed media we have nowadays.....more info
• Not Perfect by any means, but still an important work
  Approximately 25 years ago, when Edward Said first published this book, something of a revolution in academic circles began. Since that time, debate has raged and will probably continue to rage for many years hence about exactly how accurate Said was with this argument.
  
  At its heart, "Orientalism" is an argument against essentialising the world. Said contends that the West (Europe and, later on, the United States) defined itself with reference to what it was not, rather than with reference to what it was. What wasn't it? Well, according to Said, it most decidedly was not the East (either Middle East or Far East). As a result, scholarship on non-Western countries and cultures has been coloured ever since by an attitude that the subject is degenerate or in need of benevolent assistance.
  
  In order to demonstrate this, Said - who was a literature critic, not a historian, which explains his methods - takes the reader on a journey from Greek tragedies right through to relatively modern scholarship on the Middle East. This edition, in fact, features an extra essay in which he discusses some of the coverage of the 2003 Iraq war.
  Many of the usual suspects of Middle East scholarship turn up here. Arthur Balfour and Lord Cromer are castigated for their attitudes toward Egypt and Palestine, while figures such as Lawrence of Arabia make appearances as well. Academic luminaries such as HAR Gibb and Bernard Lewis are also roundly criticised for their efforts. As befits Said's original career, various great authors such as Flaubert and Nerval also contribute to his argument.
  
  Be warned, this is an exceptionally dense argument to comprehend. Said approaches his topic through a Foucaultian lens and with a heavy dose of philosophy, so the reader will not have facts and conclusions served up on a platter. Similarly, Said assumes that the reader knows who most of these authors are already, so if you aren't aware of someone's significance you may well find yourself lost every now and then.
  Nonetheless, there is an overwhelming sense at the end of the book not only of accomplishment but also of having read something important. Bits and pieces of the argument will fall into place over time, rather than straight away.
  
  Is this a perfect argument? Probably not, and Said responds in an afterword to some of his critics. A common criticism is that not enough heed was paid to some scholarly traditions, particularly the German, which did not engage in as much essentialism as the British-American and French perhaps did.
  Similarly, it needs to be remembered that this work is a polemic. There were other scholars in various fields arriving at similar - if more nuanced - conclusions to Said's at the time this book was first published, however "Orientalism" does not have time for nuances and subtleties (in some cases, it doesn't have time for totally accurate chronology either, but that's a different issue).
  
  As I have said earlier, the debate about the accuracy of Said's approach to history continues and may never fully be resolved. One need only read some of Bernard Lewis' work to see an emphatic rejection of the claims Said makes against him (Lewis and Said were engaged in a long war of words in the "New York Review Of Books") as well as quite a different view of Middle Eastern history.
  That being said, this book is highly recommended to those who want to see what this debate is all about. Regardless of whether the reader agrees with it, anyone with an interest in the Middle East should have read this book at least once. It will either form an important plank in one's understanding of that region and history in general or be an example of "what those other people think". Either way, a must-read....more info
• An exhaustive review of European literature about the East
  Whatever one may chose to believe about Said's methodology, one cannot question his vast erudition concerning Western literature about the Middle East. Said presents a rigorous and thoroughgoing exegesis of Western texts about the "Orient" and covers virtually the entire gamut in European letters, from Nietzsche to Karl Marx, from British colonialsim to American social science. His penetrating criticism of this material constitutes a significant contribution to the canon of literature.

  One may argue against the merit of Said's more radical interpretation of these texts, namely, that the concept of the "Orient" is a sweeping generalization that lacks "ontological stability," and must be understood as a discourse of power in Western literature. This is a fascinating and intellectually pregnant thesis, although many may find it recondite and polemical....more info

• On Orientalism
  In this post 9.11 world where ever-increasing importance
  is being attached to keywords such as `Islamic
  fundamentalism,' `Jihad,' and `Clash of civilizations,'
  Edward Said's monumental publication serves as a reminder to
  both agitated policymakers and the alarmed public that such
  perceptions of the `Islam threat' are, in fact, nothing new.
  
  Said's expos¨¦ persistently delineates how the West has created
  an erroneous, heavily biased systematic knowledge of the Orient
  for political, economical and social purposes. The Orient
  - which, in the book, is mainly represented through the Arab
  world - has been defined as the antithesis of everything
  European (or Western). Thus, the Orient loses its intrinsic,
  self-determined value and becomes a counterfeit identity that
  only accentuates the genuineness of the Occidental.
  Overly exaggerated and false perceptions of the Orient are
  promulgated, to be embedded in the works of philologists,
  poets, government officials, anthropologists, and so on,
  all who compose - be it voluntarily or involuntarily,
  consciously or subconsciously, intentionally or
  unintentionally - the vast body of `Orientalists'.
  
  Although Said may not have expected the controversy bred and
  spread through his book to have such far-reaching implications
  as they have now, his claims are pertinent to why and how
  current international, US-led foreign policy objectives have
  become centered on the two-fold strategy of a) countering
  terrorism (i.e. countering the `Islam threat') and
  b) proliferating Western ideals of freedom and democracy.
  The striking similarities between European point of view
  toward the Orient during 17c-early 20c and American attitudes
  in the post Cold War world validate the subsisting tradition
  of Orientalism.
  
  While the author has devoted much time and attention to
  deconstruct the Western creation of the Orient, not much
  work has been done on the contrary - the author himself
  acknowledges this in the latter parts of the text.
  Yet after patiently going through the details, the reader
  may ask, and justifiably so, "What, then, is the correct or
  recommendable approach to understanding the Orient?"
  In other words, after deconstructing the `false' Orient,
  how are we to reconstruct the `true' Orient? Should such
  reconstruction be the responsibility of penitent Western
  scholars, or self-determined Oriental scholars?
  
  This also leads to other important questions that have been
  neglected in Said's work (perhaps because it was not within
  the mandate of this particular volume), which is - what are
  Oriental perceptions of the Occidental, and Oriental
  perceptions of the Oriental? If, as the author claims,
  perceptions on different cultural realms are defined through
  a relationship of power, domination and hegemony, does the
  Orientals' conception of the West conform to such an assertion?
  How do Orientals define themselves, and how do other
  cultures `less powerful' than the Oriental perceive the Orient?
  Are all such perceptions necessarily under the dominating
  influence of "Orientalism"? To ask and answer such questions
  would be the critical next step to enhancing the persuasive
  power of Said's argument.
  
  ...more info
• An account of how 'the West' perceives 'others'
  Although some may find this book distasteful to their appetites because it might infringe upon their personal perceptions of themselves or their society, debasing the book to a work that they perceive as an attack upon their 'race', "Orientalism" actually attempts to address an issue concerning Western academic perceptions regarding non-Western people: Mainly that these perceptions are tainted. The very fact that some individuals perceive that the book is a personal attack upon a certain race validates the book itself. Said attempts therein to explain how certain perceptions about certain people persist in academia, permeating and sustaining prejudices within the non-academic world as well, because the Orientalist school appeals to the base of human emotions of jingoism and self-justification of 'superiority'. Debasing this explanantion by perceiving it as an attack upon any other 'race' reeks of the attitude that Said is trying to explain. No 'race' is at blaim, only the causal relationship between the perceptions that empire created and the people they attempted to govern. Interpretations that attempt to label Said's work as an attack upon a certain 'race' only show the true colors of those that make such arguments...more info
• Breaking stereotypes
  Seemingly unable to come to terms with the Muslim world, Orientalism is as timely to read today as it was when it was first published in 1978. Edward Said offered a much needed examination of many of the texts that had come to represent the corpus of "Orientalism" in Western Humanities classes. He went back to the late 18th and early 19th century to set the basis for this new field of study that emerged from the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt. What began as an investigation of the monuments of the Near East soon developed into a study of the people, their culture and their religions. The only problem was that these studies treated the "Orientals" like anthropological specimens, never getting beyond general categories and treating Islam like it was some perversion of Christianity, inspired by an anarchist in robes.
  
  Said provided many textual references so you don't have to read the books to get an idea where he is coming from. He charted the long lineage of Orientalism up to the late 20th century through a wide variety of British and French writers. He drew distinctions between the more racist writers and those who had their heart in the right place, even if they couldn't completely get beyond their Western conceits. He paused to analyze such writers as Nerval, Flaubert, Burton, Gibb and Massignon, who penetrated deeper into the Muslim world than other writers. But, here too he pointed out where their analyses failed to give a complete picture and where their egos (particularly that of Burton) got into the way of their observations.
  
  The book may be rough going for those who are looking for sharp, concise analyses of the writers in question. Said chose to look at the way these writers interpreted the "Orient" in a parabolical way that may be frustrating for many readers. He focused mainly on the Near East, specifically the Arab world, showing how these academic studies came to shape the British and French foreign policy in the region. Muslims found their religion objectified to the point of miscomprehension and themselves reduced to a servant class in the minds of British and French colonialists. Said bluntly illustrated how the United States inherited this legacy in the second half of the 20th century, particularly in H.A.R. Gibb, who came to the US after establishing his career as an "Orientalist" in Great Britain. Said noted how many American universities in the late 50's and early 60's perpetuated these Arab stereotypes without much questioning taking place.
  
  Edward Said was a gifted writer who understood the semiology of these texts, and built up an impressive body of work in his lifetime. He examined the situation in Palestine, his birthplace, in detail in The Question of Palestine, and has written numerous publications on the cultural and political conflicts in the region. However, this book is the base text for understanding Said's larger body of work....more info
• Good idea, bad book.
  Said's book starts with the indisputable premise that the West's view of "the Orient" was distorted due to the West's own preconceptions and needs. This is one of the basic hazards of perception. But rather than a dispassionate analysis of this phenomenon, Said's book alternates between indignant screed and irrelevant windiness. The analysis is really poor - shockingly poor - and I don't think I got anything out of the book once I was past its main idea. Looking at the other reviewers, I'm not sure they did either. There is not one impressive insight about any of the texts Said analyzes - from Balfour to Flaubert to Kipling to Dante, they all become cookie-cutter "Orientalists." Even Homer and George Eliot get tarred with the same brush as Burton and T.E. Lawrence. I think I learned about neither Europe nor the Orient. I'd suggest looking at a page or two before purchasing. I doubt you'll be impressed. In certain ways, this is probably why the book is famous: Said created a field but left it to others to actually explore its riches. ...more info
• Crucial work on culture and imperialism
  Given the amount that has already been said here about Said's `Orientalism', it is worth just summarising, as I understand it, what the book is about and the kind of readership it will be of interest to.
  
  What is the book about? `Orientalism' deals with Western (mainly British, French and American) colonial representation of `the Orient' (mainly the Middle East). In other words, it is about how the West saw the East.
  
  What are the book's arguments? Said demonstrates how Western representations of the Orient were not grounded in reality but were in fact constructed in opposition to whatever the West saw itself as - rational, liberal, progressive, dynamic. In the process, the Orient came to be represented as the irrational and decadent `Other' to the West. More controversially, Said contends that this was a means of imposing cultural domination on the Orient. Said uses Foucault's notion of discourse (an institutionalised way of thinking) to show how Western `knowledge' of the East gave it power over the East.
  
  Why is the book significant? `Orientalism' has created shockwaves throughout academia and beyond since its publication in 1978. For one, it revolutionises the way we think about European empire - that imperial power was enforced not just politically or economically, but also culturally. The work has since spawned a whole sub-field of cultural studies on European imperialism, or more broadly, Western cultural influence. Said's textual deconstruction of colonial literature also paved the way various schools of postcolonial theorists concerned with colonial literary criticism. These ideas still reverberate with contemporary concerns, especially America's role in shaping in Middle East.
  
  What are the books defects? Many of the shortcomings of the book have already been addressed here, but I shall highlight some of them briefly. Firstly, Said presents a monolithic picture of `the West' in the very same way he accuses them of representing `the East'; in reality, `the West' was and is of course far less homogenous that Said suggests and the discourse of the Oriental `Other' is but one of many other discourses. Secondly, he neglects to demonstrate how the Orient influenced the West as well; cultural influence was bidirectional. Thirdly, Said's personal engagement with the subject as a Palestinian living in America undoubtedly distorts or at least biases his judgements. These are amongst the reasons why I give the book only 4 out of 5 stars.
  
  Despite these shortcomings, this seminal work is impossible to ignore and I would highly recommend it. I found the writing clear and forceful, and the arguments cogent. The extent to which the work has been cited, dissected and qualified is itself tribute to its immense influence, even twenty years on. A must-read. ...more info
• One of the greatest minds of our times
  Orientalism is the classic work of one of the greatest minds of our times. I am, however, disappointed that Amazon posted Al Kruse's "review" in which he claims to have met Said and that Said confessed to Kruse that he was a total fraud. How convenient since Mr. Said recently died that these wild claims cannot be substantiated or refuted. I too met Mr. Said and I have the photos to prove it. In my conversation with him Said spoke passionately and intelligently about western perceptions of the Arab world. I suggest readers delve into Said's older works and move up to his more recent writings including his autobiography, Out of Place, so that they can experience the works of one of the most remarkable people of our times....more info
• A Seminal Work for Cultural Understanding
  Relations between people of different cultures is a vital part of today's world, not only for culture's sake, but in terms of diplomacy, business, travel, military action, and even just general knowledge. Unlike in previous eras, we are extremely likely to find ourselves living and working with those "others" who used to inhabit unknown spaces "out there". So, intercultural relations can impact on our daily life in new ways that our grandparents never dreamed of. The quality and success of those relationships are going to depend on what we know as individuals about those "others" or on what we know as a society. That is why the process by which we get that knowledge and the actual contents of that knowledge are so important. ORIENTALISM is the work that over the last third of a century has most influenced the way people think and write about that process.
  
  Edward Said concentrated on what is commonly known as "the Middle East", but would be better known as the largely-Muslim countries east of Europe and west of India, or maybe western Asia. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, this part of the world was often called "the Orient". (Though people applied that term to the rest of Asia too.} The method in which he looks at this so-called Orient can be extended to any other. He examines the process by which Euro-Americans sought information about the Orient. They gleaned it from the writings of diplomats, soldiers, administrators, travellers, and businessmen who had stayed for varying lengths of time in the Orient. They got it from the paintings of artists who wished to sell paintings of exotic scenes or from poets and novelists who wished to write of exotic locales. In almost all cases, the presenters of knowledge treated the Orient as homogenous, simple, dangerous, crude, full of exoticism or fanaticism and above all, unchanging. People there were not separate individuals like "us"; they were the undifferentiated "others" with whom we could make contrasts favorable to ourselves. Some Westerners might dream of escape to the exotic world of the Orient, where society would be the reverse of their own. Some presenters of the Orient knew a lot about what they wrote or painted, others had an extremely superficial knowledge. In all cases, Said writes, the information collected and presented was used by governments in the West to control the Orient. Information was power. The people in the Orient had, and needed, no independent existence. They were only shadows brought to life by the Light of Knowledge emanating from the West. They might be guided to proper ways by Western powers, Westerners with power. Orientalism underlay colonialism.
  
  Said examines the vast body of written work---that "Orientalism"---very extensively. He notes that it has had its own paradigms of research, its own learned societies, its own establishment, not to mention university departments labelled "Oriental Studies" in many countries. Through such bodies, the Orient has been labelled, packaged and presented to the world for two hundred years. We can see this process alive and well today. All you have to do is watch Hollywood movies, turn on your TV for the news, or read travel/geographic magazines. All you have to do is listen to current American pronouncements about the same area, regard their lack of trust in its people, their lack of respect. Think about the labels that are put on Palestinians or Shia Muslims. It is not a question of whether you support this particular cause or that. It is a question of how you get your information. Think about it. The world may depend on a radical change in Western thinking, equal to a stop to suicide bombings, teaching of hatred and terrorist plots. When is a man a terrorist and when is he a freedom fighter ? When an international news magazine tells us so ? An information establishment shapes the presentation of that old "Orient" and many other parts of the world. Said took the first mighty step in forcing the West to see its own constructions. For that, and for a detailed, well-argued book, five stars are obligatory.
  ...more info
• exceptional!
  An exceptionally well-written, very intelligent book- an essential read.
  Said not only wonderfully contextualizes orientalism by drawing on a myriad of texts, but examines it with a critical eye. This book is one of the most important books written in the post-modern erea. ...more info
• Orientalism
  ...Edward Said writes an important piece, revealing several important aspects of western thought. He proves that, even today, racism plays a dominant role in Westerner's perceptions and treatment of others. Said utilizes numerous literary, scholarly, and policy works to deconstruct Orientalism. These pieces aid comprehension and help to illustrate his complex issues. In addition, he exposes a logical and thought provoking argument that appeals to students and scholars in modern Middle Eastern Studies and a variety of other disciplines....more info
• cri du couer
  Ironically, the great Palestinian-American humanist scholar Edward Said wrote this essentially inaccurate book as a bold and pained cri du coeur two decades before the events of September 11th and the fresh entanglement by the West in the Middle East would render obvious its stature as required reading. One must not attempt to understand our world from the West without a careful listening to the late author's cry.
  
  That sound emerges from a life of `humanistic critique' of the world's uniform-izing powers, whether these take academic, governmental, economic, or religious form. Said hopes that the watchword of `liberation' is in fact an unstoppable and developmental force in history, though he is more resigned than hopeful for results in his generation. `My goal in Orientalism', he explains, is to use humanistic critique to open up the fields of struggle, to introduce a longer sequence of thought and analysis to replace the short bursts of polemical, thought-stopping fury that so imprison us in labels and antagonistic debate whose goal is a belligerent collective identity rather than understanding and intellectual exchange.'
  
  The truth, power, and heuristic value of Said's argument lie in the contraposition of `individual' with `collective' identity. So does its error.
  
  The author believes that generalization, labeling, identification of collective or typical behaviors, and the like fundamentally mislead. He is correct about many of them, perhaps most. Yet this fundamentally anarchist principal would make his own work impossible and does not fairly treat the many generalizations about peoples and their struggles that can rightly be made in order to facilitate rather than impede the kind of `understanding' that Said so admirably desires.
  
  In practice, Said is not so inflexible on this point as his theory might suggest. For this reason, he has given us a long book with a lot to say rather than a very short book with just one idea. This happy disconnect between theory and praxis is what makes his book-to say nothing of his body of work-so critical for `Western' (pardon the generalization and collective identity) people who must somehow come to understand what it is like to be studied, discussed, historically located, conquered, fought, `liberated', and studied again by people whose `positional superiority' makes humanistic interaction as peers almost impossible.
  
  Said's `Introduction' (pp. 1-28) is one of those rare prefatory pieces that actually do justice to the book that ensues. The reading of it is both a joy and a satisfactory orientation to follows.
  
  The book itself falls messily into three discursive chapters: `The Scope of Orientalism' (pp.31-110), `Orientalist structures and Restructures', and `Orientalism Now'. In the first of these breathtakingly well-read pieces, we are reminded of the Baconian principle that `knowledge is power'. The kind of knowledge produced by the quasi-canonical views of `the Orient' developed in colonizing Europe and inherited at a late date by an ascendant America is inextricably enmeshed in the exercise of power. It is not innocent knowing, but rather the systematic domestication of a reality that little matches the categories into which it is forced. This knowledge aspires to empirical obviousness, to objectivity, to the status of that which no reasonable (Western or enlightened Eastern) observe could deny. It is a reality in which the knower is indisputably on the side of imperial power and the known is a less fortunate entity over whom empire is justified in advance by the body of knowledge that is abbreviated as `Orientalism'. It is a schematized and theoretical knowledge based on very little interaction with the human objects that come under its purview. It is subordinating and hungry for a classical `fixed point' in the history of the culture under analysis, a (hopefully) literary moment to which all other encountered aspects and real-time human representatives of that culture can be compared and found wanting.
  
  Said argues that such knowledge is a form of paranoia. Illuminated by his anecdotal suggestion that most of our renowned Orientalists did not like the `Orientals' they met, the claim of paranoia is too important an assertion to be skirted.
  
  The author is particularly perceptive in his description of a `textual attitude' in part IV (`Crisis') of this first long chapter. For example, `It seems a common human failing to prefer the schematic authority of a text to the disorientations of direct encounters with the human. But is this failing constantly present, or are there circumstances that, more than others, make the textual attitude likely to prevail?' For Said, there are such circumstances and Orientalism falls victim to both of them. First, `One is when a human being confronts at close quarters something relatively unknown and threatening and previously distant ... A second situation favoring the textual attitude is the appearance of success'.
  
  On the contrary, Said wants to name and thereby debunk the textual attitude with its false objectivizing, as he asserts in the programmatic statement of the book's sprawling second chapter (`Orientalist Structures and Restructures', pp. 111-197): `My thesis is that the essential aspects of modern Orientalist theory and practice (from which present-day Orientalism derives) can be understood, not as a sudden access of objective knowledge about the Orient, but as a set of structures inherited from the past, secularized, redisposed, and re-formed by such disciplines as philology, which in turn were naturalized, modernized, and laicized substitutes for (versions of) Christian supernaturalism.'
  
  In this chapter, the author makes his boldest claims about the human deficiencies of the Orientalists: `We are immediately brought back to the realization that Orientalists, like many other early-nineteenth-century thinkers, conceive of humanity either in large collective terms or in abstract generalities. Orientalists are neither interested in nor capable of discussing individuals; instead artificial entities, perhaps with their roots in Herderian populism, predominate. There are Orientals, Asiatics, Semites, Muslims, Arabs, Jews, races, mentalities, nations, and the like ...' In his signature asyndetic prose, Said describes the ironies that immerse the nineteenth-century European traveler to the Orient, who retains his `European power, to comment on, acquire, possess everything around it. The Orientalist can imitate the Orient without the opposite being true.'
  
  It is the cumulative, multi-layered power of Orientalism that makes Said consider it a menace rather than an irritation: `Orientalism can thus be regarded as a manner of regularized (or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient ... My contention is that Orientalism is fundamentally a political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West, which elided the Orient's difference with its weakness.' The academic is sometimes a na?ve and well-meaning complicit: `Formally the Orientalist sees himself as accomplishing the union of Orient and Occident, but mainly by reasserting the technological, political, and cultural supremacy of the West. History, in such a union, is radically attenuated if not banished.'
  
  Further, it is the seepage of Orientalist perception out of the academy and into the realm of policy and political power that render it, for Said, a dangerous element and, so, worthy of attention from Said's powerful pen. The author documents a number of examples in his final chapter.
  
  The `Afterword' included in this 25th-anniversary volume (pp. 329-352) was written in 1994 and provided Said the opportunity to respond to accusations of non-Western bias and (laughably) Islamic fundamentalism. Chiefly, his defense against allegations that he has been partial-in several meanings of the word-is that he had written `a partisan book, not a theoretical machine'. A charitable reading of this defense might well be enough to excuse the author the need to clarify so extensively what he did not intend to say. Yet there is enough truth in the allegation to wish that Said had lived long enough to do justice to his topic by authoring a work on how Muslims (how to avoid a generalization?) have conceived of the West in partial, schematized, and therefore distorted ways that preclude human engagement. Perhaps that was not his vocation. It would have made his body of work less partial and therefore truer.
  
  To comment upon Said's Orientalism is necessarily to indulge in the very type of generalization that he savages in its pages. Yet one can do so with readerly sympathy and even solidarity. His influential book is, in part, a `testament of wounds and a record of sufferings'. History certainly validates the need for such a work. He has provided it with more eloquence, passion, and learning than perhaps any other author who has or might have attempted the same task.
  
  It is not difficult to intuit the causes of the dissonance and enmity that arise when Said's view of the world engages with, say, the `civilizationism' of Samuel Huntington or the `crisis of Islam' espoused by Bernard Lewis (against whom Said directs an extended screed). In the former case, the typology must grate, in the latter the reference to a former, classical, and admirable Islam from which the Muslim peoples as we know them today have declined. Though the inevitable caricaturing of such brief description is self-evident, there is enough truth in the abbreviation to justify Said's alarm, if not his disdain.
  
  Probably, the lack of symmetry between the Huntington and Lewis schools on the one hand, and the Said approach on the other, creates a context where Said's fundamentally inaccurate work can and does ring true. His voice is, to quote an Oriental prophet, not unlike that of `one crying in the wilderness'.
  
  It is good to listen to such a voice, though not by shutting out all others. The confrontation of East and West has left victims. Said, before leukemia too early removed him from our company, took up their voice and spoke it without distraction....more info
• cannot be denied
  "Orientalism" is without doubt Edward Said's most important work. The concept of Orientalism has become the underlying principle for what we today call post-colonial theory. we should be very careful to distinguish between Said's journalist work and his scholarship. "Orietalism" is a strictly scholarly work; i therfore find it strange that some reviewers chastice Said for his political opnions in reviews about this book.
  The practice of Orientalism is of course political in its nature, and this is exactly Said's point: our image of the other is constituted by so many disciplines - educational, political, social, literary, economic, etc... our final perception is closer to what we have learned or have been told about the other than what we actually see.
  The most brlliant part of "Orientalism" is the introduction, in which said explains his strategies for approaching Western texts about the orient. His strategies, which draw on Althusser's ideological apparatuses and Gramsci's notions of hegemony and Foucault's conceptualizations of power, make up the conceptual edifice that we know as post-colonialism. post-colonialism is a reading strategy through which we attempt to unveil the elements that has been attached to our image of the other. In fact, Said's main question is: why do we see the other as we do?
  However, the downside of his endeavor (to which Said himself has admitted) is that the practice of orientalism as Said sees it in "Orientalism" is practiced solely by the west. Said does not examine whether the Orient's image of itself is compatible to that of the orientalists; also, Said does not refer to the practice of occidentalism as a counter-movement. These are important issues that are only partly examined in his later works.
  in general, i think this is an extremely important book that introduces extremely important ideas that all academics and also non-academics should be acquainted with. Said's work has been considered valuable to several academic fields, literature, critical theory, comparative literature, cultural studies, etc... Said's academic quest began here, and we should be very sorry that is has ended. ...more info
• Nice Try
   I will not waste time summarizing Edward Said's "Orientalism" here, since I am sure the reader can find this in other reviews at this site. Therefore, let us dive right in and consider the quality of the work.
  Alas, anger seethes from every paragraph of this work. On the face of it, who can blame him, an expatriate Palestinian. However, his righteous anger very quickly becomes a liability instead of an asset as he sinks into ad hominem attacks on those with whom he disagrees, in particular the poor Bernard
  Lewis. This unseemly and useless display is cloaked in a prodigious erudition.
  However, after one wades through the erudition, one finds sophistry and McLuhanism. (Marshall McLuhan presented a novel, germane, and essentially true picture of television's real impact, but over-killed his thesis with a barrage of examples that went beyond convincing to the threshold of caricature.)
  Said's anger is well and truly founded, but it becomes self-destructive in its absoluteness. In an ironic turn he becomes just another fundamentalist, this time in service of the truth. But his absolutist,fundamentalist views are inevitably and intrinsically flawed. Thus, like McLuhan, we get the message
  while we reject the body of the communication.
  Accordingly, after reading "Orientalism" one is left with a sense of disappointment; one wants to thank him for the alert, yet one also wishes he had focused more on the specific transgressions of the alleged Orientalists. One is happy to be reminded of the high dynamic spatial and temporal aspects of, dare I use the word, culture, but one shrinks at his unholy abhorrence of categories - like culture, and Islam, and the Orient. In my opinion, Said's "Orientalism" is a good and useful idea nearly destroyed by the author's anger and erudition.
  Approach at your peril, but if the matter interests you, see his blissfully shorter, though equally flawed,"Clash of Ignorance" which appeared in "The Nation" in October, 2001....more info
• Orientalism--one of the top 10 works of the 20th century
  This isn't a perfect book by any means. Foremost among its flaws is that it fails to incorporate German Orientalism. This negelect, admitted by Said, brings into question the whole project and argument in the estimation of some. Nevertheless, Said's arguments on the relationship between knowledge and power, colonialism and the construction and formation of the counter-factual, foreign other remain intact despite the distortions and exaggerations within this book. In other words, if one so desired, one could entirely rewrite Said's book from the ground up without its flaws and with a more comprehensive scope and arrive at basically many of the same conclusions.
  One can decide to judge the value of the book by its influence and the subsequent emergence of post-colonial studies following its publication, or one can decided to view it as a work on the merits of its contents. From the former perspective, this is a work of indisputable importance. From the latter perspective, this is a work that though engrossing leaves much to be desired becuase it fails on various fronts. Despite those failures, much of Said's argument remains intact. Anyone who does read this book and study his arguments cannot help but to be effected by the arguments presented. After Said, the study of other cutlures can never be viewed in the same light....more info
• Some good ideas in a sea of redundancies
  In spite of how interesting all references and quotes of Orientalists could be, discovering that it takes more than 300 pages to Edward Said to define Orientalism as a system of ideological fictions is a bit disappointing, after he repeated the same concept hundreds of times with different words. Well, that statement is true for almost all sciences, both social and technical, and surely for their development during XIX century. Once I have been warned by the author that Orientalism has been built above prejudices, and I have been given some significant examples of that, I would prefer not to go through a myriad of further instances to support the initial thesis. Besides, Orientalism's functional facet to Colonialism are widely mentioned, but poorly deepened. That would have required an interdisciplinary approach - cultural, political, historical, ethnological and, why not, scientific - whilst this book is mainly an academic report about textual analysis. Another interesting side, i.e. why Oriental studies are carried on mainly by Western people?, is explained in a few final pages, and in my opinion it would have deserved much more space. So, when Said admits in his 1994 Afterword (probably the worthiest chapter in the whole book) that he has no interest, or capacity, in showing true Orient or Islam, I think he achieves an excessive restriction of the subject "Middle East" (because in this essay "Orient" means that), limiting its suitability to a general audience (which I belong to). There are of course many appreciable hints, but the general style, with its obsessive repetitions, reminds me too much of the political prose common in the 70's, even if Said makes a visible effort to maintain a scholar objectivity. In summary, I did not dislike the book, but I probably lack the specific knowledge necessary to fully appreciate it....more info
• Read this book with an open mind.
  I believe that Said has been attacked by favorers of opposite views and different thinkers in a biased way without paying attention to what he can offer.
  It is inevitable that a book like Orientalism with such a controversial topic will create responses the way this one did.
  Regardless of the emotional responses that works in this line create, Said has done a great job documenting the well researched history of the West's view of the east --the Orient--, and how it has been shaped by the past interests, tensions, and alike.
  ...more info
• A Classic
  "Orientalism" is considered to be Said's seminal work. It is a difficult read - especially if you don't know French or German - but a central (valid) point comes across quite clearly: Europe and North America's exotic romaticism of Southwest Asian and North African cultures underpins a view of these cultures as morally inferior and subsequently not worthy of the same rights to life, property and self-determination. Given the implications to policy towards the region, there has been much controversy over the book, both within academics and in the larger political sphere....more info