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A landmark work from the intellectually auspicious author of Orientalism that explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. "Said is a brilliant . . . scholar, aesthete and political activist".--Washington Post Book World.

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Publishers Weekly Review

The author of Orientalism examines the interrelationship of Occidental literature and imperialism from the 17th century to the Gulf war. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Said (Columbia Univ.) is internationally recognized as a scholar with exceptional insight on wide-ranging cultural phenomena. Here he brings the same skills exhibited in his widely heralded work Orientalism (CH, Apr'79) to bear on the age of imperialism. Said makes extensive use of literary masterpieces, intermingling them with a solid understanding of political developments, to present an interesting and original view of the pervasive legacy of imperalism. He sees the impact of imperialism as a "consolidated vision" of the sort Kipling had in mind when he spoke of the "white man's burden." Set against this Eurocentric view were the thoughts and writings of indigenous peoples who struggled valiantly, even as decolonization was in progress, to retain and reassert their own distinct cultural identity. Said's scope is wide; his arguments deep. Yet this book is one that no serious student of modern empire can afford to ignore. Those who seek greater understanding of today's interaction between the West and the Third World cannot overlook its message of the true oneness of the human community. Advanced undergraduate; graduate; faculty. J. A. Casada; Winthrop University

Booklist Review

A scholarly analysis of the complex, interdependent relationship between the purveyors of culture and the forces of imperialism from the author of Orientalism and Covering Islam. Arguing that many artistic formats foster and sustain the cycle of nationalistic aggression, Said provides an in-depth examination of a handful of notable Western masterpieces that offered both subtle and overt support for the type of rabid expansionism that characterized the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The works of writers as diverse as Jane Austen, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, and Albert Camus sanctioned and promoted the notion of empire building. Conversely, a new literature of independence and self-determination emerged, rejecting standard European and American ethnocentric conceits. A significant and insightful historical and sociological treatise, recommended for larger research collections. (Reviewed Feb 15, 1993)0394587383Margaret Flanagan

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Born in Jerusalem and educated at Victoria College in Cairo and at Princeton and Harvard universities, Edward Said has taught at Columbia University since 1963 and has been a visiting professor at Harvard and Johns Hopkins University. He has had an unusual dual career as a professor of comparative literature, a recognized expert on the novelist and short story writer Joseph Conrad, (see Vol. 1) and as one of the most significant contemporary writers on the Middle East, especially the Palestinian question and the plight of Palestinians living in the occupied territories. Although he is not a trained historian, his Orientalism (1978) is one of the most stimulating critical evaluations of traditional Western writing on Middle Eastern history, societies, and literature. In the controversial Covering Islam (1981), he examined how the Western media have biased Western perspectives on the Middle East. A Palestinian by birth, Said has sought to show how Palestinian history differs from the rest of Arabic history because of the encounter with Jewish settlers and to present to Western readers a more broadly representative Palestinian position than they usually obtain from Western sources. Said is presently Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia, editor of Arab Studies Quarterly, and chair of the board of trustees of the Institute of Arab Studies. He is a member of the Palestinian National Council as well as the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. (Bowker Author Biography)