Orientalism (book)

Orientalism

Cover of the first edition, showing part of The Snake Charmer (1880), an Orientalist painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) currently held at the Clark Art Institute
Author	Edward W. Saïd
Language	English
Subject	Orientalism
Publisher	Pantheon Books
Publication date	1978
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	368
ISBN	978-0-394-42814-7
OCLC	4004102
Dewey Decimal	950/.07/2
LC Class	DS12 .S24 1979

Orientalism is a 1978 book by Edward Said, in which he establishes the term "Orientalism" as a critical concept to describe the Western world's commonly contemptuous depiction and portrayal of the Eastern world—that is, the Orient. Societies and peoples of the Orient are those who inhabit regions throughout Asia and North Africa. Said argues that Orientalism, in the sense of the Western scholarship about the Eastern world, is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies that produced it, which makes much Orientalist work inherently political and servile to power.^[1]

According to Said, in the Middle East, the social, economic, and cultural practices of the ruling Arab elites indicate they are imperial satraps who have internalized a romanticized version of Arab culture created by French and British (and later, American) Orientalists. Examples used in the book include critical analyses of the colonial literature of Joseph Conrad,^{[verification needed]} which conflates a people, a time, and a place into one narrative of an incident and adventure in an exotic land.^[2]

Through the critical application of post-structuralism in its scholarship, Orientalism influenced the development of literary theory, cultural criticism, and the field of Middle Eastern studies, especially with regard to how academics practice their intellectual inquiries when examining, describing, and explaining the Middle East.^[3] Moreover, the scope of Said's scholarship established Orientalism as a foundational text in the field of post-colonial studies by denoting and examining the connotations of Orientalism, and the history of a given country's post-colonial period.^[4]

As a public intellectual, Said debated historians and scholars of area studies, notably historian Bernard Lewis, who described the thesis of Orientalism as "anti-Western" in nature.^[5] For subsequent editions of Orientalism, Said wrote an Afterword (1995)^{[6]: 329–52} and a Preface (2003)^{[6]: xi–xxiii} addressing discussions of the book as cultural criticism.