HistoryBook · 1978
Orientalism
Edward Said
Said argues that Western scholarship on the East was never neutral: depicting Oriental societies as irrational, primitive and backward supplied the intellectual justification for ruling them. The arrangement also denied those societies the standing to represent themselves, since the authority to describe them sat elsewhere. First published in 1978.
Why you should read this
Said's founding text of postcolonial studies, arguing that Western scholarship on 'the East' functioned as a tool of imperial power rather than neutral inquiry. Assumes some familiarity with colonial history and literary theory, and reads as an academic argument rather than a narrative history.
- Field
- History
- Form
- Non-fiction
- Published
- 1978
- Themes
- PostcolonialismHistory
