Orientalism (Pantheon, 1978)

Edward Said · c. 1978

Edward Said did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this book, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The book prints chapter headings its extracted text does not preserve, so the claims below are in the book's order but not grouped. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
The Orient was almost a European invention

Their wordsThe Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.
Our reading
The Orient is not an inert fact of nature

Their wordsthe Orient is not an inert fact of nature.
Our reading
The relationship between West and East is one of power and hegemony

Their wordsThe relationship between Occident and Orient is a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony
Our reading
Orientalism is a political doctrine imposed on the Orient because it was weaker than the West

Their wordsOrientalism is fundamentally a political doctrine willed over the Orient because the Orient was weaker than the West
Our reading
In what they could say about the Orient, Europeans were racist, imperialist and almost wholly ethnocentric

Their wordsevery European, in what he could say about the Orient, was consequently a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric.
Our reading
Literature and culture are too often presumed to be politically innocent

Their wordsToo often literature and culture are presumed to be politically, even historically innocent; it has regularly seemed otherwise to me

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