Orientalism: Review Article

Orientalism by Edward Said

Review by: Bayly Winder
Middle East Journal, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 615-619
Published by: Middle East Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4326308 .
Accessed: 22/06/2014 03:38
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Middle East Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Middle East
Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.56 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 03:38:36 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS
Orientalism

ReviewArticleby Bayly Winder

by Edward Said. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. xvi + 328 pages. Notes to
p. 350. Index to p. 368. $15.00 cloth. $4.95
paper (Vintage Books).

ORIENTALISM,

Introduction.
Edward W. Said, Parr Professor of English and
Comparative Literature at Columbia University,
has published significant, critical works on English literature and also, recently, other works on
the Middle East among which are The Questionof
Palestine (1980) and Covering Islam (1981). He
combines deep sensitivity to injustices wrought
upon the Palestinians, and Arabs generally, with
broad knowledge of Western intellectual history.
Orientalismis a controversial and important book.
It has become a jingoistic by-word in the Third
World; younger students in and of the Middle
East are excited by it; and it has probably destroyed a once respectable if rather fusty academic word, Orientalism.It is to be hoped that it will
sensitize its readers to the issues that it raises.
The Thesis.
The thesis of Orientalismis initially defined (pp.
2-4) at three levels: firstly, an academic discipline, broadly including anyone who writes and
teaches about the Orient; secondly, "a style of
thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between 'the Orient' and
'the Occident' "; and, thirdly, starting roughly in
the late 18th century, "the corporate institution
for dealing with the Orient . . : in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient."
Further, the author contends that "because of

Orientalism the Orient was not (and is not) a free

subject of thought or action." Power relationships
are an important part of the thesis. In brief Said
argues that the West is powerful; the East is weak.
Western Orientalist scholarship is part of the
West's power, hence it is exploitive. It in fact
created the whole concept of Orient and Oriental.
Another aspect of the thesis is summed up (p.
260) by the author as follows: "Given its special
relationship to both Christianity and Judaism,
Islam remained forever the Orientalist's idea (or
type) of original cultural effrontery, aggravated
naturallyby the fear that Islamic civilization originally (as well as contemporaneously) continued
to stand somehow opposed to the Christian
West." Elsewhere (p. 42), Dr. Said defines "the
essence of Orientalism . .. [as] the ineradicable
distinction between Western superiority and Oriental inferiority." A final part of Dr. Said's brief is
that Orientalism has so swept the field that Arabs
now repeat the myths of Orientalism (p. 322), ape
Western culture, and have hooked themselves on
Western consumerism.
The Argument.
The book is divided into an introduction (28
pages) and three chapters, "The Scope of Orientalism" (80 pages), "Orientalist Structures and
Restructures" (84 pages), and "Orientalism Now"
(128 pages). Each chapter is symetrically divided
into four named sections.
Chapter 1 introduces us to Orientalism: 1. as
power in the hands of a Cromer or a Kissinger, 2.
as ancient assumptions in the Iliad, Aeschylus,
Euripides, Dante and Shakespeare, and 3. as
project, using Napoleon's expedition to Egypt

615

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.56 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 03:38:36 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

616

THE MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

and the Suez Canal as examples. He then outlines

Orientalism as generally uniferstood and broadens the concept to include operational types
(Doughty, T. E. Lawrence) and imaginative writers such as Nerval and Walter Scott.
Chapter 2 concentrates in section one on four
elements of 18th century thought: "expansion" of
the European world vision, the "historical confrontation" of civilizations, the "sympathy"of the
European for foreign cultures ultimately seen as
exotic, and, lastly, the tendency to classify, d la
Linnaeus initially, but then by extension to classifying peoples. Section two considers the founder
of modern Orientalism, de Sacy, who is viewed as
having "fixed" the Orient by a kind of tissue
culturing through his prestigious Chrestomathie
arabe. Said then turns to de Sacy's rather racist
successor, E. Renan.
The third section of Chapter II deals with
"residential Orientalism." The analysis focuses on
ModernEgyptians, by Lane, whom Said places (p.
15) in the category of "the writers who intends to
use his residence for the specific task of providing
professional Orientalism with scientific material."
Said equally maintains (p. 158) that in Lane the
Orientalist ego is very much in evidence, however
much his style tries for impartial impersonality. It
is hard to follow Mr. Said's criticism of Lane, who
evidently is the antithesis of the "textual attitude"
that was objected to in "absentee" Orientalism,
and it is reductive of Lane to dismiss his impartiality on the basis of style. The final part of Chapter
II is largely concerned with the exploitation by
the "literary crowd" (p. 168) of materials made
available by the academic Orientalists. Those
discussed, quintessential Romantics, include Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Nerval, Flaubert, Byron,
Scott, Kinglake and Burton.
The final chapter's first section, "Latent and
Manifest Orientalism" (pp. 201-25) limns Professor Said's vision of late 19th century Orientalism,
which is that scholars such as Wellhausen, Noldeke, D. B. Macdonald, Becker and Snouck Hurgronje, despite differences in method, share
consensus on Islam: "latent inferiority" (p. 209).
Their "manifest" counterparts are men like Cromer and Curzon, the operational types who appropriated to their purpose the "new science,"
geography. The two types converge in World War
I with the government service of people such as

E. H. Palmer, Hogarth, Lawrence, Gertrude Bell

and Philby.
Section two, "Style, Expertise, Vision. Orientalism's Worldliness"(pp. 226-54), moves into 20th
century imperialistic attitudes, centering on stereotyping and on the related white racist attitudes
which cast the Oriental or the Arab into immutable categories.
The third section, "Modern Anglo-French Orientalism in Fullest Flower" (pp. 225-84), concentrates on Louis Massignon (pp. 264-74) and
H. A. R. Gibb (pp. 274-83). Said pays lavish
tribute to Massignon's style, intellectual range,
erudition, genius of mind, and involvement on
behalf of Arab causes, but does not consider that
he transcended Orientalism. Massignon troubles
Said, who recognizes him as an Orientalist genius
who also fought for the Arabs politically, but
nevertheless, to Said, Massignon does not pass
muster.
Gibb fares less well than Massignon. Said believes that Gibb was a company man who went on
to write and speak mostly for "policy-determining
organizations."Said states that one should seek to
understand Gibb's ideas from his earlier scholarly
works but omits any reference to Gibb's important earlier works. Rather Said emphasizes Gibbs'
debt to Macdonald and his "master theme. ., the
tension between transcendent 'Islam' and the
realities of every day human experience." Gibb's
Islamic orthodoxy, "has an ultimate precedence
and domination over all life in the Islamic Orient." By extension, Gibb's Islam is imperiled by
Western "isms" and by the meddling of less
knowledgeable (than Gibb) reformers.
The last section (pp. 284-328) deals with "The
Latest Phase" and focuses on post-World War II
America where Arab stereotyping is highlighted.
Secondly, using the late Morroe Berger (Princeton) as chief example, Said argues that social
scientific American Orientalism has retained "the
attitudes of cultural hostility" (p. 290). He further
argues that the study of literature is avoided and
that the genealogy of American Orientalism can
be traced to military, policy and business antecedents. In the next subsection, the American Oriental Society, the Middle East Institute and the
Middle East Studies Association are found to
interlock with foundations and federal support
programs, RAND, oil companies, etc. Gustave

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.56 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 03:38:36 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS
von Grunebaum (Chicago, UCLA) is discussed as
the American continuer of the European tradition. Manfred Halpern (Princeton) and Leonard
Binder (Chicago) are introduced as further examples of the "new American Orientalism" (p. 300).
Said decries the fact that no significant challenge
is made to Orientalist dogma (pp. 300-1), and the
subsection closes with a hostile analysis of the
two-volume CambridgeHistory of Islam, a somewhat curious inclusion in a section on neo-Orientalism in America since the CambridgeHistory is a
European enterprise. The third subsection,
"Merely Islam," argues that Israelis, their friends,
and others "Orientalize" Arabs and that the Orientalists reduce their subjects so "that what is
really left to the Arab . . . is an undifferentiated
sexual drive" (p. 311), or (in other, contrary
visions) sexual incapacity. P. J. Vatikiotis (London) and Bernard Lewis (Princeton) are analysed
(via their contributions to Revolutionin the Middle
East and Other Case Studies, 1972) in part to
highlight their alleged contention that Arabs are
incapable of conducting a revolution as opposed
to demonstrations or coups. Lewis is pursued
further, because "for at least a decade and a half
his work in the main has been aggressively ideological ... a project .., to discredit the Arabs and
Islam . . ." (p. 316). In the final subsection, "Orientals, Orientals, Orientals" Said contends that
Orientalism is spreading both in the United States
and in the Orient itself. Universities there follow
Western models,' and Arab students come to
American universities. These are two final Orientalist triumphs: First, contemporary Near Eastern
culture follows European and American models
even to the extent that Orientals study at Orientalist centers.2 Secondly, consumerism has
hooked the Arab and Islamic world into the
Western market system with the end result that
"the modern Orient ... participates in its own
Orientalizing" (p. 325).

617

mustbe applauded;one is sickenedby the "woggery" that assaults one on every side. More
specifically,one can readilyconcede Said'sthesis
withtwo of his classesof Orientalizers.The firstis
type;the second
statesmenof the Cromer/Curzon
is that characterizedby Said as the "literary
crowd"althoughin regardto the latterone should
observe (a) that artists are by definition free
spirits, and (b) that it is uncommon to read
Shakespeareas an historianof Rome. Another
example:who has not winced at usages such as
"TheArabthinks. . ." (pp. 228-30, 262, 308-9)
or bookscalledTheArabMind.It is only one step
from such typologiesto plain injustice.In short,
Saidhas broughtsome bitter truthshome.
NegativeComments.
One could quibblewith variousdetailssuch as
Said'sjudgmentthat Muir'sLife of Mahometand
Caliphateare today considered "reliablemonument" (p. 151), but other questions are more
important.One is the perversion of the term
Orientalism.
Saidsometimesuses it as a substitute
for racism or imperialism,but more often for
workon the Orientby miscellaneouswritersand
statemen.Suchwordengineeringleadsto a reduclike "everyEuropean,in whathe
tio ad absurdum
could say about the Orient, was . . . a racist,and
imperialist,and almost totally ethnocentric"(p.
204). Another query: Why are there no references to the considerableArabic literatureon
Orientalism?Relevantwriterssuch as Kurd'Ali,
Mohammad'Abduh, RashIdRida' and MuhammadFarldWajdideserve consideration.
The most seriousissuesrelateto Orientalismas
generallyunderstood.One is skewingthe sample
of Orientalists.The author'sdefenseof his sample
(pp. 4, 16, 18-19) cannot excuse omission of

figures such as Brockelmann, Nicholson, or

Kratchkowski.
Amongpost-WorldWar IIAmericanscholarsone can hardlyskip Hitti (Princeton;
brief reference, p. 296) especially because he
most
preciselyof all does not fit Said'scharge,or,
Comments.
Positive
There are broad areas of Said's critique which among the next generation figures such as M.
Kerr(UCLA).A similardistortionis Said'sgeneralizationthat "Orientalism. . . was an exclusively
1. Shouldone infer that al-Azharwould be a better male province"(p. 207). If this statementrefers
model thanOxfordor Harvard?
Now," it is grosslyunfairto many
2. Said'sunderstandingis necessarilylinked to the to "Orientalism
female
scholars,e.g., Nabia Abbot
distinguished
same source, Western scholarly Orientalism,as his
(Chicago)and Anne Lambton(London)or even
footnotesmakeclear.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.56 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 03:38:36 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

618

THE MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

to femaleobserversof an earlierera such as Lady

Anne Blunt, Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark. A
similarpoint attaches to Said'serroneous statement that"one of the strikingaspectsof the new
American. . . attentionto the Orient is its singularavoidanceof literature"(p. 291). Whatthen do
people like Pierre Caccia (Columbia) and
MounahKhouri(Berkeley)do?
With regardto Said'streatment(p. 293 ff.) of
the MiddleEastStudiesAssociation(MESA),the
AmericanOrientalSociety (AOS), and the Middle East Institute(MEI),first, he seems unaware
that the motivationfor establishingMESA was
the view thatAOS was aggressivelyancientwhile
MEIwas quaintlycontemporary.MESA did not
grow "out of' the MEI.3 Secondly, Said might

haveregisteredthe factthatthe firststudiesof the

Americanimage of Near Easternpeoples were
conductedand publishedby MESA.
On Gibb a majorpoint emerges.One is skewing the sampleof his works. Did Gibb present a
biasedview in all the worksnot cited by Said?Is it
a disserviceto make more Arabicclassicsavailable in Englishor give the Englishreadera brief
surveyof Arabicliterature?
In my view what Professor Said has done,
despitehis disclaimers(pp. 328-9), is to "Orientalize"Orientalists.His net effect is to reduce
Orientaliststo a mass of prejudicedparticipant
captivesof Western imperialism.Said says that

Arabsand Muslimsis within the MiddleEastern

scholarlycommunity.
Two mainconceptualfaultscharacterizeOrientalism.The first is an assumptionthat the values
of all religionsand peoples are identicand unanalyzable from without. That many millions of
Muslimsprobably,and possiblyrightly,consider
Christianityto be "wretched,bare,and trivial"as
Bruckhardtdid Islam(p. 208) is neithersurprising nor upsetting.ShouldWesternersbe better?')
Toynbee entitled a book The Worldand the West .

others convey the same point by speaking on

nationsas rich and poor;some use North/South;
develothers developedlless
others, corelperiphery;
oped;others, modernltraditional.
Orientalistsdid
not invent the differences;to deny them may be
to increasethem.
The second conceptual fault is a related assumptionthatindividualscannotbelieve in something, a religion, and still study with some
objectivity another, even a "hostile" religion.
Mustone be a Muslimto analyzeIslam?Although
Said covers himself (p. 322) on this particular
overwhelmshis cover.
point,his workcumulatively
The basictroubleis thatOrientalism
is a polemic, in a good causeperhaps,but a polemic. It is a
book basedon "politicalinterests"(p. 16). I close
with a quotationfrom the introductionto Gibb's

6. Before sendingthis review to the editor, I asked

my colleague,FrancisPeters,to look it over. He wrote
the followingremarkin the marginat this point:The
East ... has ... ever identified himself whole- answerto this rhetoricalquestionis important,I think.
heartedlywith the Arabs" (p. 27). There are If "no,""ourfaultsareeveryoneelse's,"it is a ratherflat
academicswho largely do "identify with" the retort. If "yes,"one is at the heart of the enterprise.
Arabs,but "identifyingwith"is not an admissible Westernersarenot better,but Westernscience,includ"Orientalism"is self-betteringin that it is selfcriterionfor scholarship.Saidargues(p. 301) that ing
corrective.Orientalism
is a traditionalpiece of "Orienno Orientalistchallengesthe "dogmasof Orien- talism."It looks at texts, attitudes,prejudices,etc. and
talism."M. Dickson's(Princeton)celebratedre- suggestsa corrective."Orientalism"like all Western
view4 of L. Lockhart'sThe Fall of the Safavi science, simplytakes the correctionsback to the maDynasty5comes down hard on the author for chine shop and re-calibratesits methods. Thus, the
method of Orientalismis precisedly the hallmarkof
"no person academically involved with the Near

identifyingwith the "Curzon-SykesSchool" (p. Western science. Who will take Orientalism seriously
510). Actuallyone of the most potent (if rather and so become "better"?The Near East Center at
impotent)groups working for fair treatmentof NYU? Of course. The ulamaat al-Azhar?Of course

3. A majorcause of the relativelatenessin forming

MESAwas the fear thatit wouldfall aparton the anvil
of the Arab-Israelidispute.The same factor probably
preventedthe emergenceof groupslike the Committee
of ConcernedAsianScholars;cf. Orientalism
p. 301.
4. J.A.O.S.82, no. 4 (O-Ja'62)503-17.
5. New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1958.

not. Who would more likely write such a book as

An "Orientalist"
Orientalism?
like EdwardSaid trained
in Western intellectualand analyticaltechniques or
someone on the faculty of Mashhad? He by writing it, I

in readingit, and you in reviewingit are indulgingin

what "Orientalism" is, and it alone does best, trying to

understandthe "other"in a seriousandself-criticalway.

7. New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1953.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.56 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 03:38:36 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

619

BOOK REVIEWS

Mohammedanism:

Reviewed
byLouisDupree

The books underrevieware amongthe firstto

tacklethe complexreasonswhy the Soviet Union
the unconscious prejudices of its age ... Most
invaded Afghanistanin December 1979. The
writersapproachthe subject. .. fromone or other
actionwasthe firstSovietaggressionon a piece of
of two opposedpointsof view, neitherof whichis
virgin
real estate since World War II. Hungary
free fromconsciousprejudgment.... The one ...
andCzechoslovakiaare not in the samecategory,
approachesfromthe angleof apologetic,the other
de haut en has. The former writers are mainly
for they are in the Soviet bloc. Afghanistan,
professing Muslims.... The loyalty and sincerity
however,had been traditionallyindependentand
whichinspirethese works deserverespect....
nonaligned.
The second group [are] those whose view is
Monks,Griffithsand the Newells, with minor
coloured by the belief that Islam is an inferior
exceptions,acceptthe followingreasonsfor Sovireligion. Where this view arises from a sincere
religiousfaith,it may often deserve respect....
et intervention:The Soviet desire for security
. . . It need only be added that the present work
along its vulnerablesouthern rim; the incipient
has been consciouslyinfluencedby two convicSino-Americanrapprochement;
the failure of the
tions;one, thatIslamis an automonousexpression
US
to
Senate
SALT
ratify
II, coupled with
of religiousthoughtand experience,which must
be viewed in and through itself and its own
NATO's decision to place a new generationof
principlesand standards;the other, thatwhile the
missiles in Europe;fear that the collapse of the
practiceof everyreligionto some extentfallsshort
DemocraticRepublicof Afghanistanwouldresult
of its own highest ideals, the exposition of an
in anotherfundamentalistMuslimregime,which
outsideobservershould lay more stress upon the
could ultimatelyinfect their own MuslimCentral
ideals which it strives to realize than upon the
failingsof our commonhumanity.8
Asianrepublics.
These lines represent most excellently a scholOther reasons also exist. The Soviet military
arly tradition that will continue to add to the hadnot foughta majoractionsinceWorldWarII,
world's understanding of itself.
and welcomed the opportunity to test tactics,
machinesand men. Additionally,Soviet specialA BAYLY WINDER, New York University.
ists on the US predicted that the Americans
would not respond effectively, lacking the will,
capabilityand credibility.
In my opinion, the Russianshave no plans to
push on to the warmwaters of the south (yet)!
They saw a target of opportunity (so they
AFGHANISTAN
thought)andplanneda DominicanRepublic-style
operation:zapa regimein power;replaceit witha
THE SOVIET INTERVENTION IN AFGHANISTAN, friendly puppet; withdrawmost of the
troops,
by Alfred L. Monks. Washingtonand London: thus havingextended the Russianzone of domiAmericanEnterpriseInstitutefor PublicPolicy nation 500 miles to the south. The entire world
Research,1981. 60 pages. Map. $4.25.
witnessed the Soviet miscalculations,and most
AFGHANISTAN: KEY TO A CONTINENT, by John
nationscondemnedthem for their actions.
C. Griffiths. Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
Those of us who do not have a Russianlan1981. 217 pages. Map. Illus. Bibi. to p. 219. guage capabilityare most gratefulto Monks for
Index to p. 224. $20.00.
his succinctlittle book. His in-depthdiscussionof
THE STRUGGLE FOR AFGHANISTAN, by Nancy
the shifts in Soviet militarydoctrineare particuPeabody Newell and Richard S. Newell. Ithaca larlyilluminating.He concludeshis analysis:". . .
and London: Cornell University Press, 1981. they (the Soviets)had a doctrinaljustificationfor
215 pages. Map. Charts. Illus. Appends. to p. interventionin that country:force was justified
220. Notes to p. 227. Index to p. 236. $14.95.
because it was employed to protect a socialist
countrythreatenedfrom externalandfrom inter8. pp. v-vi.
nal enemies.... The current Soviet concept of
Inevitably,then, such a book, as this aims to be,
will be permeatedby the intellectualmodes and

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.56 on Sun, 22 Jun 2014 03:38:36 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions