This is the first systematic critique of Edward Said's influential Orientalism, a book that for almost three decades has received wide acclaim in both East and West, voluminous commentary by scholars and translation into more than fifteen languages. Said's main thesis was that the Western image of the East was heavily biased by colonial attitudes, racism, and centuries of political exploitation. Although Said's critique was controversial, the impact of his ideas has been a pervasive rethinking of Western perceptions of Eastern cultures, plus a tendency to view all scholarship in Oriental studies as tainted by considerations of power and prejudice. Warraq contends that Said's influenc reached even further than academic circles and book reviews: Said's work "taught an entire generation of Arabs the art of self-pity," eventually adding fuel to the fire of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1980s and helping shape the face of the "Evil West" for many Muslims. In this thorough reconsideration of Said's famous work, Ibn Warraq argues that Said's case against the West is seriously flawed. Warraq accuses Said of not only willfully misinterpreting the work of many scholars but also of systematically misrepresenting Western civilization as a whole. With example after example, Warraq shows that from the time of the ancient Greeks, Western civilization has always had a strain in its very makeup that accepted non-Westerners and has always been open to foreign ideas. Warraq also criticizes Said for inadequate methodology, incoherent arguments, and a faulty understanding of history. He points out not only Said's tendentious interpretations, but also historical howlers that would make a sophomore blush.Proof of Said's destructive influence can be seen in the treatment of many works of art, especially those of the nineteenth-century European artists who captured complex and engaging scenes fo the East. Said's intellectual successors have succeeded in forcing thousands of first-class paintings into the storage rooms of major museums, some of which were in fact commissioned by Eastern sultans and kings who delighted in the portraits and landscapes captured by Western artists. Warraq devotes an entire section to the value of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Oriental scholars and artists, whose work fell into disrepute as a result of Said's criticism. Additionally, Warraq penetrates Said's flimsy arguments portraying such works as Rudyard Kipling's Kim and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park as racist and pro-slavery fodder for the imperialistic West. [from the jacket]
Wikipedia in English (4)
Ibn Warraq considers the West, which he credits, at its best, with three unusual and valuable traits: rational thought, universalism, and self-criticism. He criticizes Said for being unwilling to admit that Westerners often explore topics simply out of a desire to know things, rather than for an practical purposes, let alone the nefarious motives that Said attributes to them. Westerners began studying "the Orient" at times when they had no imperialistic designs. Ibn Warraq argues that Europeans varied in their attitudes towards other cultures and did not simply lump all non-Europeans, or even all Asians into an undifferentiated mass. Indeed, Europeans have often written admiringly of other cultures, and found themselves lacking by comparison.
Ibn Warraq also sharply criticizes Said's methodology, accusing him of ignoring or twisting anything that does not suit his purposes. One point that he makes is that although the West is guilty of slavery and imperialism, it is hardly the only collection of cultures that is. He also sharply criticizes Said's writing style which often obscures more than enlightens, or is as meaningless as it is indignant. Said finds it somehow, in some unexplained way, sinister that Europeans declared a link between Sanskrit and European languages such as Latin and Greek.
Warraq quotes Indian scholars at great length. Even some who are quite anti-British nonetheless admit that the British rediscovered the history of ancient India, and ironically, thus encouraged a sense of nationalism that lead to Indian independence.
An excellent book, vastly more readable than Orientalism, and far more powerful. (