Friday, October 8, 2010

Orientalism by Edward W. Said

This book contends that in Western nations--especially Britain and France, historically, but also the United States in more recent times--a type of scholarship and attitude towards the other, and more specifically, toward what these Europeans class as Oriental. Said does a really nice job of showing how these Orientalists (people who study the Orient) aid in the imperial projects of these European countries--and how the West can learn more about itself from its views on the Orient than it can about the Orient. This book is a model of interdisciplinary and nuanced scholarship.

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