Edward Saïd’s seminal work, Orientalism, has, according to one academic, “redefined our understanding of colonialism and empire.” In Orienrltalism, Saïd surveys the history and nature of Western attitudes towards the East, and contends that “orientalism” is a powerful European ideological creation – a way for writers, philosophers and Western political powers (alongside their think tanks) to deal with the ‘otherness’ of eastern culture, customs and beliefs. Drawing on his own experiences as an Arab Palestinian living in the West, Said examines how these ideas can be a reflection of European imperialism and racism. He traces this view through the writings of Homer, Flaubert, Disraeli and Kipling, whose imaginative depictions have greatly contributed to the West’s romantic and exotic picture of the Orient.
Paraphrasing from the book’s introduction, orientalism is the amplification of difference, the presumption of Western superiority, and, “the application of clichéd analytical models for perceiving the Oriental world,” from the perspectives of Western thinkers and scholars. According to Said, orientalism is the key source of the inaccuracy in cultural representations that form the foundations of Western thought and perception of the Eastern world. The theoretical framework that orientalism covers has three tenets: (1) an academic tradition or field [think: Sir Richard Burton or possibly and less so, Wilfred Thesiger] (2) a worldview, representation, and canon / discourse which bases itself upon an, “ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the Orient” and the West (3) to be used as a powerful political instrument of Western domination over Eastern countries.
Praise for the Orientalism
“Beautifully patterned and passionately argued.”
— New Statesman
“Very exciting … his case is not merely persuasive, but conclusive.”
— John Leonard, New York Times
See too: (Palestine:) The One-State Solution; an ageless piece by Edward Said on the Palestine question which he penned in 1999.
📗 Profile of: Sir Richard Burton
📗 Profile of: Wilfred Thesiger