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savvylit's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.75
Orientalism is an info-dense yet acute deep dive into a Western tradition of anti-Arab, xenophobic, and Islamophobic sentiment in the West. Edward Said traces the history of "area studies" focused on the East from the discipline's early European beginnings to modern American imperialism. From the first, Said reveals that Orientalist studies always focused on proving the entire region as a complete opposite to the West, or Occident. Said carefully analyzes texts that were once considered authoritative on the entire Orient. These texts were exclusively written by Europeans and exclusively obsessed with viewing the East as a dismissible monolith. These "scholars" were also obsessed with quoting each other, preferring the opinions of their "expert" predecessors over any perspective directly from an actual resident of an Eastern nation.
I was sickened to be able to track the way that a handful of racist generalizations became established as fact over the course of a few centuries. What started as a supposed analysis of language or culture eventually became (mis)information used to make devastating global policy decisions. Most disturbingly of all was how eerily familiar I found the stereotypes that Said pulled from Orientalist literature. Though this book was published in 1978, I - as a US citizen who grew up post-9/11 - shamefully recognized the ongoing perpetuation of these racist ideas. Islamophobia and East-focused xenophobia are still such an ingrained part of the Western culture in which I live.
In light of the current genocide of Palestinians, Said's analysis is perhaps as relevant as ever. There is one passage in particular that I keep noticing over and over again in the Western reporting on Gaza: focusing on the Palestinian people as a mass. This idea of a faceless mass allows news outlets to rob Palestinians of their individuality. Which in turn makes it very easy for reporters and viewers alike to maintain racist generalizations. And generalizations in turn mean that those of us consuming the media can look away from the tragedy because it's just something that's happening "over there" to "them."
I was sickened to be able to track the way that a handful of racist generalizations became established as fact over the course of a few centuries. What started as a supposed analysis of language or culture eventually became (mis)information used to make devastating global policy decisions. Most disturbingly of all was how eerily familiar I found the stereotypes that Said pulled from Orientalist literature. Though this book was published in 1978, I - as a US citizen who grew up post-9/11 - shamefully recognized the ongoing perpetuation of these racist ideas. Islamophobia and East-focused xenophobia are still such an ingrained part of the Western culture in which I live.
In light of the current genocide of Palestinians, Said's analysis is perhaps as relevant as ever. There is one passage in particular that I keep noticing over and over again in the Western reporting on Gaza: focusing on the Palestinian people as a mass. This idea of a faceless mass allows news outlets to rob Palestinians of their individuality. Which in turn makes it very easy for reporters and viewers alike to maintain racist generalizations. And generalizations in turn mean that those of us consuming the media can look away from the tragedy because it's just something that's happening "over there" to "them."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Colonisation, Racism, War, and Violence
brnineworms's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
The first chapter of Orientalism was really strong (I’d give it four and a half stars in isolation) but chapters two and three struggled to hold my interest for the most part (I’d give them each three stars, for an overall average rating of three and a half). Said’s writing reminds me of Marx’s – it’s dense and dry but it’s well-researched and it’s clear that a lot of thought went into keeping the book as accessible as possible without losing that academic rigour.
The first chapter introduces the subject of Orientalism and explores its origins and manifestations, while the later chapters shift the focus towards individual Orientalist writers, using them as exemplary case studies. On that note, Said chooses to look at Orientalist literature exclusively, but what of paintings or architecture? When I think of Orientalism, I think of artworks by the likes of Gérôme, Lewis, or Weeks. To relegate that entire movement to no more than a passing mention seems odd to me. There’s also a focus on the Middle East and Egypt with not much said about the rest of Asia, though this is a little more understandable since the author, raised in Jerusalem and Cairo, is writing what he knows. I’ve seen some people accuse him of cherry-picking in order to push some kind of agenda but I’m not sure I’d go that far. What I will say is this: Orientalism is foundational but far from comprehensive. There were topics which I expected to feature prominently that were hardly acknowledged; likewise, there were angles which I hadn’t considered that Said brought up but didn’t delve into (you can’t casually mention teratology then move on, Edward, you can’t do that to me).
Orientalism feels thorough yet, at the same time, paradoxically underdeveloped. I enjoyed it overall and I would certainly recommend reading the first third, which is full of great insights. Here’s a quote:
“I use the word “arbitrary” here because imaginative geography of the “our land–barbarian land” variety does not require that the barbarians acknowledge the distinction. It is enough for “us” to set up these boundaries in our own minds; “they” become “they” accordingly, and both their territory and their mentality are designated as different from “ours.” To a certain extent modern and primitive societies seem thus to derive a sense of their identities negatively. [...] Yet often the sense in which someone feels himself to be not-foreign is based on a very unrigorous idea of what is “out there,” beyond one’s own territory. All kinds of superstitions, associations, and fictions appear to crowd the unfamiliar space outside one’s own.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia, Colonisation, Islamophobia, Sexism, and Sexual content
Moderate: Antisemitism, Racial slurs, Cultural appropriation, Gore, Misogyny, and War
Minor: Slavery, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Genocide, Homophobia, Death, Excrement, Murder, Self harm, and Sexual violence
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